the teenager’s guide on how to suck at life
by Skitts
Summary: Join Kairi as she goes through school learning how to be the best in sucking at life. Because life in general is pretty screwed up anyway. [het, au, KairiSoraNaminé, KairiAxel, KairiRiku]
1. introduction

**the teenager's guide on how to suck at life  
**introduction

* * *

**M**ost kids at high school strive to be popular, and those who are already considered to be so strive to grind the faces of their peers into the dirt. To put the above phrase into more metaphorical terms, the social hierarchy is a bit like a food chain - just like the ones you learn about in Biology.

You start out with the dregs of society – the retards and the rejects, who spend most of their time in the library not fitting in. And then you move up onto the geeks and the nerds, who spend most of their time in the Maths rooms sucking up to the teachers and each other. They're not particularly well-liked but they do have friends.

And, as I'm sure you all know, friends mean _everything_ in school. The more friends you have, the higher up you are in the pecking order.

And then you sift through the rest of the student body - through the vast band of middling and medioka kids - until you reach the very small percentage of populars at the top, surrounded by tag-alongs and wannabes who live by the phrase 'individuality is for the weak'.

There are some exceptions in this vicious spiral, however.

Kids who don't really belong anywhere, kids who throw the whole system out of synch, kids who tip the perfect little balance simply by _existing_.

Problem kids.

Kairi was one such child, problematic as they come. She didn't want to be popular and she didn't want to laugh in the faces of others.

In fact, she didn't really want anything out of life apart from attention, or so it seemed.

* * *

**L**et me give you some small pieces of information before we dive head first into the teenager's guide on how to suck at life; facts, figures, names, places - the skeleton of the story. You can piece it together in any way you wish, the world is your oyster.

To start off: her name was Kairi, as was mentioned before (see above).

Her best friend's name was Naminé and they'd been inseparable ever since the tender of six. All the way back in primary school, through middle school, on over to high school and up, up, up into the sophomore year.

Her boyfriend's name was Sora (Kairi's boyfriend, that is, not Naminé's – the blonde was single). Kairi and Sora had been going out for two years and were the school's 'it' couple. Neither was particularly popular, but out of all their fellow sophomores they had the longest-standing relationship, and **that** was something to brag about. And Kairi did – quite often, to be quite honest.

Remember these details now – each character will be mentioned several times in the guide. Maybe you want to jot that information down somewhere safe before we continue? Maybe in that notebook to your right, or perhaps on your arm in blue biro? – make sure it washes off, mind.

Right – back down to business, assuming you've just written down the preceding information and stored it in a safe place for further reference.

The school was called Oblivion High, proud home of the largest social food-chain imaginable – maybe because it was the largest school imaginable in Traverse County, with a student body of over 3,500. And it just kept getting bigger and bigger, a seemingly endless stream of new children arriving from a seemingly endless waiting list. It wasn't just a big school; it was a very, very good school to boot. Kids from all over Traverse County flocked there in droves, and teachers were hard pushed to find places for all the new arrivals.

If there were too many smart kids wanting to transfer from one school to another because they weren't being stretched enough it's obvious what the teachers would do – they'd expel the children with the slack attitudes towards education, the ones who didn't apply themselves enough or try hard enough. The ones who talked in class, who passed notes, who made rude comments, who only got 20 percent in their exams – like Kairi.

Believe it or not, but it's _very hard_ to get noticed amongst 3,500 peers, all of whom are expected to act as good as gold at all times if they wanted to cling onto their place in the schooling system.

The only plausible way Kairi could get noticed (save for dying her hair blonde, putting on lipstick and swanning off to Rikku and the popular girls, which was hardly plausible anyway) was to muck about in class and this, in the words of the headmistress, Miss Gainsborough, was unacceptable. One more black mark in your book and you'll be out of this school, Kairi – her exact words, complete and unabridged.

And Kairi tried hard – she settled down and stopped mucking about, got her act together and started to achieve 80s and 90s in her test, much to the joy of Miss Gainsborough.

Even though Kairi couldn't get noticed through shoddy schoolwork, she managed to become the subject of many-a bitchy conversation and/or awed stare as she marched through the corridor, head held high – mainly because she had other methods of attention whoring and rumour mongering. She showed Sora off every chance she got, flaunting her title of 'longest-standing girlfriend' to the extreme – and to be honest, Sora was getting sick of it.

Sick enough to consider asking out Naminé, who'd had a crush on Sora ever since she first laid eyes on him – too bad her best friend got in there first. She'd been too shy to ask, and Kairi had managed to snatch potential date-material out from under her pretty little snub nose. Of course he never asked Kairi why she needed all the publicity, whether it be good or bad – but then again, nobody seems to think of other people's problems, do they? Apart from maybe Naminé – all her worrying over her best friend reduced her fingernails to bitten-down stumps. Not at all attractive.

Things started to go from merely unattractive and unpleasant to downright ugly pretty damn quickly – Sora, not having the guts to tell Kairi she'd been officially dumped, started to go to the cinema with Naminé as opposed to the red-head behind his former girlfriend's back, and he always seemed to be off 'doing homework' at her house whenever Kairi invited him over.

Needless to say, the red-head got suspicious – the suspicious were increased tenfold (all the way up into the lands of confirmation) when she saw both teens making out by the sports hall, escaping from Kairi by using the excuse they'd been collecting Naminé's forgotten PE kit.

That had been yesterday and, right here, right now, is where the guide really starts, what with our red-headed heroine walking into the school grounds hoping to spill some blood and smash some skulls.

The seeds of hate had been planted and the air was rife with the feeling of impending doom - a great battle was approaching, set to produce only broken jaws, bloodied-up fists, angry teachers and spells in the guidance counsellor's office.

Fasten your seatbelts, get out the pen and paper and flip to the next page for the first lesson on how to suck at life, starting in the bitch-fight of a century and ending in sweat, blood and tears – it's not something you'll want to miss, I can assure you.

* * *

**a.n:** ahhh, this is my entry for Inspire-Illuminate's contest – i haven't added the words in yet. they will come next chapter. the next chapter should come quickly – i really want to get this little ficlet finished xD.

**EDIT; **fixed spelling errors and changed some clunky sentences. will do the same to each chapter.


	2. lesson one

**teenager's guide on how to suck at life**

lesson one: how to lose your best friend

* * *

**K**airi never did things by halves – she just wasn't that sort of person. For example: when told to add just a few drops of hydrochloric acid to her beakerfull of salt one fine, sunny Chemistry lesson she used the entire bottle, resulting in something that resembled a failed coke'n'mentos experiment.

Aforementioned beaker exploded, shards of glass went everywhere and the whole thing fizzed like an out-of-control rocket on the fourth of July. It was just like a scene from a James Bond movie, what with children diving for cover under the nearest table/chair/teacher/best friend, the sound so loud it could be heard ten doors down in the English department, explosion resulting in a fiery inferno blazing steadily up the ugly, chewing-gum splattered curtains.

My God, had Kairi gotten in trouble that day…

But that just proves the point I'm trying to make here – she wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty or to get in trouble, she was no stranger to danger and she would not hesitate to pound her own best friend's face into the dirt for the sake of **her** Sora. Even if he didn't like her anymore, which the teen strongly suspected (oh, _woe_ is Kairi. Sniff sniff).

She had a better right hook than most of muscle-bound boys on the school soccer team, and was a tad tomboyish in that respect – she even had her hair cut short, to prevent it from getting in her eyes, and she'd never had her nails done properly at a salon. Ever.

The girl frowned, put one hand on her forehead to block out the sun that was firing rays of ultraviolet into her eyes, and started to scan the field for her best friend.

It may sound like an impossible task, seeking out one girl amongst a school that can hold 3,500 students. But Kairi had grown accustomed to tracking down certain faces amongst the crowds – if you concentrate hard enough for long enough eventually you'll learn how to find what you want. With Kairi, she put white dress and blonde hair together, and immediately came up with a mental image of Naminé. All she had to do was look for such characteristics on a person, match them up to her mental image then march over to confirm her suspicious, and nine out of ten times she was right. She'd been arriving at school earlier than Naminé for pretty much all her life, and she knew how to spot her. It was like a sixth sense.

After a good five minutes of head-hunting she managed to match up the mental image to the person, run the information through her brain and stamp 'positive match' onto the situation.

There was Naminé, attempting to hide behind straight-A student Olette as she made a beeline for the girls' toilets. No doubt she wanted to hide from Kairi – she'd probably been fretting about what had transpired between the three friends (correction, ex-friends) all of last night, and, being the pacifist that she was, wanted to schlep off and avoid the fight.

Well, Kairi wouldn't _let_ her. She'd force the peaceable little girl into combat – it was obvious that's what she wanted, considering she'd been dating her boyfriend behind her back.

They would fight – and it was obvious who the winner would be.

_Ha. I'll break every bone in her stupid, lying, deceiving, traitorous little body and then I'll strangle her by her hair, burn her at the stake, cut her into teensy weency itsy bitsy pieces, stuff her in a blender then sell her as 'awesome juice, $3 dollars a bottle'. Ha. Double ha. Triple ha. Or maybe I should feed the remains of her charred, drownded-ed and sabbity-stabbet-ed corpse to cannibalistic, mutated sewer rats…_

Now, the important thing to understand here is that Kairi was not naturally a mean girl. She may not have had a green cricket called Jiminy on one shoulder and a pretty blue fairy hovering by the other but she _did_ have a conscience. She did still have a heart. And that heart and conscience were busy telling her she was a heartless bitch. When she realised what she was thinking she told herself: 'I can't do this! It'll never work out… She's my best friend, for Christ's sake!'.

Truth be told, she wanted to start a fight as much as Naminé did, and that was not at all. She wanted to keep her best friend, and didn't want to loose her over something as stupid as a boy. But Sora _wasn't_ stupid – she loved him.

Naminé sure as hell wasn't her friend anymore, so why should she care about her welfare?

"Hey. Naminé," Kairi said sharply, grabbing hold of the girl's shoulder to prevent her from retreating. She even made sure to forego any friendly nicknames she'd given the girl over the years – gone were the days when she called her 'Nam', or 'Nami', or 'Mina' on certain occasions. She was just Naminé now, give or take the 'heartless, boyfriend-stealing bitch' bit that was just screaming to be tacked onto the end of her newfound title.

"Um… I, er… I mean… Hi, Kairi…" stuttered Naminé – she hated confrontation. That much was obvious, judging by how much she was shaking and the uneasy smile spread across her face.

"Don't you dare 'hi, Kairi' me, you bitch," hissed Kairi, her dangerous tone of voice making the hopeful expression her ex-best friend's face falter. She'd obviously been wishing on her shooting stars last night – '_please don't let Kairi be mad, please don't let Kairi be mad_'. "You think I'm going to stand here and smile after I saw you make out with my boyfriend? You **knew** he was off-limits!"

"N-No… I don't think that at all… Kai, listen to me, I'm… I'm… I'm sorry…" Her eyes were filling up with tears that threatened to fall, but Kairi didn't care. She said so herself.

"No! I don't care! You think one sorry and some crocodile tears will make it all better? You think I'll forgive you with open arms? You think… You think…" Kairi growled, the one-sided argument getting louder and louder, attracting attention. Too much attention. "You haven't been thinking at all lately, have you, Naminé?"

In fact, there were so many people assembled around the two girl's it's pretty safe to say about half the school saw Kairi slug Naminé in the jaw, all traces of her previous shit-eating smile vanishing in a cloud of bad will and anger.

Everything after that little incident went all blurry, as it escalated into a proper, full-blown fight to the death in the manner of a badly constructed montage in a low budget film. The only thing it lacked was the bad music and corny greyscale effects.

Naminé had stood there, holding her swollen lip with a look of surprise and gasp!shock!horror! etched onto her pale face, almost as if couldn't believe what had happened.

She pretty much had to believe it, especially once Kairi sent another fist flying in her direction, egged on by the raucous cheering of the ever-expanding crowd ("**FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!**" "**KNOCK HER TEETH OUT!**" "**PUNCH HER IN THE FACE!**" "**GO KAIRI! GO KAIRI!**" And, on the opposing side: "**GO NAMI! GO NAMI!**")

The blonde girl ducked and tried to back away, but to no avail. The large audience surrounded them, swallowed them, and there was no visible weak link in the chain or gap in the crowds that would allow her to exit. Rather, the over-large audience pushed her back in, to face her irate ex-best friend.

Kairi was ready with another fist, but Naminé again avoided the blow, countering with an attempt to slap her back, trying finding any part of the girl's body that was unprotected.

It all went downhill from there, the fight culminating in the blonde laying on her back like a beached wale, red bruises all over her face and arms, body limp, school shirt covered in mud.

And a teacher, red in face, holding a detention slip out for our red-headed antagonist, voice croaky after instructing people to clear off (very loudly), and especially due to yelling at Kairi – what was wrong with her, was she crazy, didn't she know behaviour like that wasn't tolerated in school? Blah de blah – Kairi'd heard it all before.

"**And** I want to you march right over to the guidance counsellor's office right now, young lady! If you've got a problem you need it sorting out! It's just not normal for a girl to pick a fight like that!"

Well didn't that just take the sodding biscuit.

She had a pain in her stomach, a black eye, severely pulled hair, scratch marks down her arms, detention for the next three weeks, a promised letter home to her mother, a guaranteed trip to Miss Gainsborough's office and_ now_ she was being called crazy. Only _crazy_ kids went to the guidance counsellor's office – kids as whacked out of their brains as hazelnuts. Nuts, completely nuts.

And to cap it all off, Naminé wasn't her friend anymore.

Oh, what a fun day this was shaping up to be.

* * *

**a.n:** hahahah xD. the kairiaxel will start next chapter, i promise ye . i'm hoping this whole thing is aboot six chapters long… 


	3. lesson two

**teenager's guide on how to suck at life**

lesson two: how to feel completely unattractive

* * *

**T**he girl sighed, eyes rolling as her lungs pushed the air out of her prettily parted lips in a l o n g, e x t e n d e d exhale. She was feeling, to put it bluntly, pretty damn crappy – love life was screwed, life sucked, best friend hated her, there was every chance she'd be kicked out of school by an irate headmistress who was obsessed with the colour pink and **now** she was being treated like a head case. Nuts – hazelnuts, completely loopy.

She shot passing students cold, angry glares with her violet/blue eyes. They had been approaching her with open mouths, about to ask endless streams of idiotic questions about her previous encounter with Naminé on the field, but they proved smarter than their pigtailed hair, untucked shirts and make-up smeared faces made then appear. They knew from that look that Kairi would sooner rip out their stomachs then feed said internal organ to an army of rabid moogles rather than cosy up in a corner with them for a nice, girly chat about who she'd been bitch-slapping lately.

Even this knowledge didn't prevent them from giggling and whispering together once they were sure Kairi had her back turned, obviously unaware that she was not deaf, neither was she stupid.

She managed to catch snatches of their conversation alright, despite the fact they were trying to keep it as hush-hush as possible: "_My god, did you _hear _what she did to Naminé?_"

"_I know! Rinoa told me that she broke her arm 'cause Naminé called her a slut. Well, she _is_."_

"_Hell yeah_."

These words prompted giggling, that were frantically shushed when both girls realised Kairi had halted in her steady meander along the corridors, on her trek to the guidance counsellor's office.

Kairi had every right to march up them, knock their heads together and give them the true summary of the previous events and what led up to them: to be quite simple, Naminé had broken her heart, but she had over-reated just a smidge… Psh, like she was going to waste precious time on those two stupid whores. Doubtless they'd spread the news throughout the school quicker than a fire travels around a forest, but even then they'd twist into something uglier than it need be. Kairi knew she'd always be portrayed as the bad guy in this, so why bother trying?

She sighed again, another l o n g, e x t e n d e d exhale, as she fixed her gaze dead-ahead, staring down at the empty corridor studded with doors. She played a game, counting each one as she went past, lucky not to run into anymore kids who'd already received a twisted, garbled version of the fight regurgitated from the mouths of others. People do have a sick way of twisting things so they get the maximum amount of entertainment from it – but then again, it's just like that song: people just ain't no good.

And didn't Kairi know this all too well?

She didn't want to run into any more people – better pick up the pace. Knowing her recent spell of luck, the bell would go and the corridors would end up flooded with children seeking out their form rooms and correct classes. She didn't want to deal with that.

She'd rather just curl up into a small corner and cry.

That didn't seem to be an option, however – after counting off the thirteenth door she drew to a halt outside the imposing-looking door of the office, where old Master Yen Sid would be seated behind his big, ugly desk, talking down to her like she was a hyperactive two-year-old who'd been let loose in the town square with a chainsaw.

Thirteen – unlucky number.

Damnit.

* * *

"**Y**ou're not Mr. Yen Sid."

Those were the first words that came out of the girl's mouth, uncourteous as they may have sounded. But, as soon as she'd entered the coffee-smelling office and spotted the unfamiliar figure at the desk, all thoughts of pupil/teacher courtesy had gone straight out of the large, curtain-covered window in the corner. It was a shame – the plant looked liked like it was dying. It could've done with some sunshine to perk it up, although Kairi wasn't sure it could be salvaged – it looked a bit like it'd been set on _fire_.

"No. I'm not Mr. Yen Sid," replied the unknown member of staff, a crooked smile spread across his pale face. "Take a seat? Or you could remain standing – s'all the same to me."

Kairi gave the man a swift once-over, attempting to make the fact she was checking him out hidden to all but the niggling naggling voices in her head that were chanting 'you think he looks hooooottttttt'. It wasn't like he was five-hundred like Mr. Yen Sid, either – not that she'd really seen the man. She'd never been in the office prior to this moment. Sora'd told her about him when he went up here once upon a while ago to discuss the welfare of his brother, Roxas.

This guy could only have been in his early twenties, and he was certainly something to lust over. Red hair, not dissimilar to Kairi's, but spiky, going in all directions like the spines on a porcupine. Pale features, stick-like arms, face that could almost have been described as gaunt – he was so damn skinny, almost skeletal. Kairi could feel imaginary pounds pile onto her as she stared enviously at his physique – she had a butt that seemed to expand of its own free will if she didn't go jogging every single day after school, goddamnit! Being next to him was making her feel like the Pillsbury Doughboy by comparison, and believe me, that is sooooo not a flattering look.

His eyes were bright green, like glass, and – ohmigod – under each one black tear-drop shapes snaked down in pointed lines, thanks to the wonders of modern technology (needles and tattoo parlours worked wonders).

"Are you going to stop mentally raping me and tell me why you're here?" he asked, in a cool-as-cucumber sort of voice. Only he wasn't making Kairi feel particularly cool – her school shirt was starting to stick to her back, blush spreading rapidly across her face, engulfing all the features about her that might've made her look pretty and appealing. Her eyes were her best feature, according to Sora, but the blush sort of over-powered them. Then again, what would Sora know? He dumped her a while after that little announcement, so maybe her eyes weren't that wonderful after all.

"What happened to Yen Sid? Didn't he used to work here?" she asked, slightly confused, head tilting to one side in a confused little robin fashion. Cute, verrrrrrry cute.

"He retired a while back – he got sick hearing about people's problems and decided to deal with his own. Dodgy hip. Bad heart. Liver disorder. It sucks getting old, you know. Almost as much as your life sucks."

"'Scuse me?" Kairi blinked s l o w l y, unsure of what she feeling/thinking at that exact moment. It was hard for her brain to register anything thing else apart from 'I've found my soulmate! Yay!" and "Hmn, he looks soooooo hot!". She scowled, attempting to ignore this newfound fangirl logic that seemed to have infested her mind. She was meant to be a smart girl, for the love of Jesus, Mary, God and a lot of other assorted religious persons!

"Well, your life must be pretty damn sucky to have to come to me in the first place, right?"

"So… Er… _You're_ the new guidance counsellor?" asked Kairi, a tad disappointed. Somebody that hot didn't deserve to be stuck behind a desk spending the better portion of his life listening to retarded people like Wakka whine because he'd eaten the paste again.

"Yeeaahhh. Bit slow on the uptake, right, Princess? I thought kids at this school were meant to be smart. God, I was grossly misinformed." He rolled his eyes, but at the same time tossed Kairi a casual looking smirk that made her heart melt like a stick of butter in a fat kid's mouth.

Kairi attempted to keep the my-brain's-melting type giggles at bay, feeling an awful lot like Yuna and Rikku, the two popular girlies who'd passed her by Chem on her way to the guy's office, making her feel about as welcome as mad cow disease. "So, um… What's your name?"

"Axel. Got it memorised?" he tapped the side of his head for further effect, unaware that every single thing he did was having a very bad impact on the teenage delinquent he was meant to be hearing out. "So, what's wrong? Spill."

Kairi was in danger of spilling, alright. She was in danger of liquidifying from her head down, turning into a pile of fangirl-like goo under his steady gaze.

Stupid Axel.

* * *

**a.n:** lol fangirl kairi. why is it whenever i write something the whole thing just gets longer and loongggeeerrr? it'll be aboot twelve chapters, now, cause i write so bloody much xP. bettah enjoy, betches. Next chapter'll feature spillage of problems, kleenex and hugs all round .


	4. lesson three

**teenager's guide on how to suck at life**

lesson three: how to bawl your brains out

* * *

**W**hen the irate Miss. Kisaragi had sent her over to the guidance couseller's office, Kairi had had a mental picture of the events that would follow and what to expect.

So far she had been proved wrong on every single count, extremely so when it came to her ideas of what a traditional guidance counsellor looked like. Borrowing off Sora's non too pleasant description of Mr. Yen Sid, she had build up a grey-haired specimen lacking enough strength to even pick up a teacup. Her imaginary Axel had been dull, boring and uncaring, almost annoyingly so. His face had been covered in lines from stress and old age, his skin had been studded with liver spots and he possessed one of those horrible 'don't be an idiot, everything will work out' personalities.

She had told herself she would merely nod or shake her head at any question tossed her way, politely decline to any offers of stale custard creams or lukewarm coffees, treat him with the icy politeness one treats an old aunt and then run off ASAP.

That had been the plan – until she actually walked into Axel's office, and found out how wrong her previous assumptions had been.

Now, in just a few simple questions from the red-head, she'd been reduced to a quivering wreck, hugging a box of Kleenex to her heaving chest, spilling out feelings and thoughts and emotions she hadn't even known she'd possessed up until a few seconds ago.

She seriously hadn't realised just how sucky her life was, and just how sorry she was for hurting her best friend. She admitted this to Axel, who (thankfully) wasn't looking upon her with a quirked eyebrow or a plateful of custard creams (your life stinks. Here, have a biscuit). He wasn't being cocky or snide, he wasn't treating her like a mental patient, and he wasn't affecting a lofty, 'i-r-better-than-you-you-silly-squealing-fool' air.

He was being exceptionally nice, and Kairi guessed that _this_ was the real reason Mr. Yen Sid had been sacked. Sora had spilled all on how uncomfortable he'd felt in his presence, how every five seconds his head would swivel towards the door, how he'd felt like a criminal under his searing gaze enough though he was discussing his delinquent brother, Roxas's, problems, not his.

Axel was easy to talk to because he could only have been about five years older than Kairi (and because he was amazingly hot, and it was nice to converse with somebody like that even if green slime was dripping out of your nostrils at an alarming rate and your cheeks were red and puffy and tear-splattered). And he had pulled up his chair that normally resided behind the imposing desk in the far corner of the room, moving over so he was right next to Kairi.

"How long had you and Sora been going out, Kai?" he asked softly, looking with a small amount of sympathy at her twisted features.

The girl sniffled back in response, legs crossed under her chair, another tissue clenched in her hands, dabbing at her eyes. Despite all this she managed to feel strangely happy about the friendly nickname Axel had given her. Almost like they were friends.

"About… About two years," Kairi replied, brushing strands of loose crimson hair behind one ear to give her tissue better access to the corners of her eyes. "And Naminé's been my friend since I was six and… I loved them both! I trusted them! And they did that and nobody understands how I must be feeling! Everyone's… They're all… They're all laughing behind my back and treating it like a big joke! They don't _care_, nobody does…"

"Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, isn't it, Kai?" asked Axel, watching as she dabbed at her eyes. Her mascara was running, spidery lines snaking down from her lashes and across her cheeks. Axel didn't have the heart to tell her that, on top of all her newfound problems, she looked like a wreck. He'd spare her pride, at least, considering all the other gossipy kids at school seemed to be doing their darndest to kill off her reputation. Or lack of thereof, as Kairi had been explaining to him.

"No… No s'not… My mum doesn't like me – she's always away at work or… Or out on dates and I'm at home by myself all the time! All the fucking time! My older brother was always nice to be, but he's moved out now! He's living in Hollow Bastion! And my best friend doesn't like me anymore because I think I broke her nose…"

"If you're best friends then you shouldn't let broken noses and boyfriends come between you – it's stupid stuff, that. And I know somebody who cares about you…"

"Who?" gulped Kairi, her tears ceasing when she found all the excessive weeping was starting to burn and she was in danger of being sick.

"_I_ care about you, you silly girl."

"That's different. You're paid to care. Doesn't necessarily mean you _like_ me."

"Sure it does. I like you. I like you a lot Kairi – got it memorised?" Here he tapped the side of his head as he had done the previous time he said those peculiar words, making Kairi giggle a little bit. Just a _little_ bit. "Now clean yourself up – you've smudged your mascara, you know? Can't go outside to greet the general public when you look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards, can you?"

"Oh God…" moaned Kairi, taking another fistful of Kleenex from the rapidly emptying box, swiping each piece of tissue swiftly across her face – under the eyes to mop up any stray tears, over the cheeks and around the mouth. When she pulled the tissues away they were damp and stained with black and pink – today's choice make-up colour combination. "I don't want to go out and talk to _them_. I can't… They'll all laugh at me, and… And…" Kairi looked around worriedly, pondering the pros and cons of biting her nails. She'd managed to hold off that old habit for a grand total of three weeks (she had so much stress in her life it had become a comfort) but now she was getting really het up and frantic… "I don't know how I can leave here…"

"Well, it's quite easy. You put one foot in front of the other and repeat," Axel replied flippantly, grinning at the girl. "You look a lot better now, by the way. More like the girl I saw who first came in here - confident. I'm sure the girl I met before can face just one more day of school, right?"

Kairi smiled lightly at the compliment, looking down at her newly grown and painted nails. God, she'd been longing for the day when she could colour them and make them look pretty. They were exactly how she wanted them now – why bite them off again? She used to gnaw at them until they bled, and she knew how deeply unappealing Sora must've found it when he held her hand on their dates. She didn't want to be that old, attention-seeking-yet-so-very-scared Kairi anymore. She wanted to be the one Axel obviously saw her as.

"Yeah… When you put it that way, I guess I can…"

School would be hell, she knew that. Long, boring Maths lessons with no foreseeable end, clock ticking so slowly it seemed to go backwards. Horrible, stomach-churning food in the canteen with nobody to sit next to, leaving her venerable to tater tots chucked at the head. PE without a partner, because Naminé would obviously prefer to be in the good company of Yuna or Lulu, as they hadn't organised an attempt on her life in the morning.

It would be hell, but school always was. She would get through it – she'd get through it for Axel.

"Thank you," Kairi beamed, moving forth. She wrapped her lanky arms around her guidance counsellor and gave him a large hug, heart beating at hummingbird pace and unsurity flashing in her eyes. She didn't what possessed her to do such a bold thing, but she did know that Axel had just made her pretty crappy day slightly less so when he, after a long pause, returned the embrace.

* * *

"**A**nd so, in conclusion, the claim that antimatter does not truly have a form is completely bogus," the Maths teacher, Zexion, droned on. His voice was strangely melodic, almost like a child's lullaby, and to Kairi's brain it sounded like an invitation to place her head on her textbook (opened at page 138) and go to sleep.

It would be a lot easier that way, too – she'd be dead to the world and peacefully oblivious to the curious/nasty/amused looks children in the class kept shooting her.

Naminé had her head focused downwards towards her book, staring at it so hard with her baby blues that the illogical mess of numbers and equations merged into a big blob, even more unintelligible than before. She'd sooner give herself a splitting headache then look over at Kairi – the headache point was later proved when she hissed and placed her pale hands to her temple, blinking rapidly to dislodge any stray numbers that might still be floating about in her line of vision.

The lesson continued like this for several minutes, Zexion rattling off yet another prepared essay on pi and whatnot. He could've been talking in French for all the attention his class were paying him, the sound of his voice broken occasionally by a yawn or another hiss form Naminé as the numbers danced about in her head and screwed up her brain.

"I'm sooo _boooorrrrrreeeeddddddd_," whined inner Kairi, outer Kairi nodding silently to her words of wisdom. Realising there was no point even trying to pay attention because everybody was going to fail in Maths anyway, the girl lowered her head and started to doodle in the back page of her textbook, already littered with pictures from previous lessons when she was finding it difficult to pay attention.

The words 'i ♥ sora' had been running rampant amidst the masses of doodleage, several of them featuring Zexion with a spork rammed into his one eye not obstructed by lilac hair.

Kairi frowned at her previous scribblings, and started to cross out each proclamation of her undying love for Sora (who was sat at the back, whispering to his buddy, Riku) with a thick black felt tip pen scavenged from girl next-door to her's pencil case. It wasn't like Olette would mind – she was far too asleep to stop people stealing her equipment.

After every single 'i ♥ sora' had been put to rest under layer upon layer of black pen, Kairi found a small amount of space at the bottom of her page and scribbled, in miniscule writing, 'kairi + axel'.

His words still rung in her head even know, as Zexion turned to answer professor Demyx by the doorway, whining in his immature way because a kid had thrown his textbook out the window and could he please, please, _pppllleeeaasssseee_ borrow one because if he could then he'd love Zexion forever (this prompted a lot of giggles from those in the class conscious enough to register speech).

'I care about you, Kairi'.

Even the nasty note tossed her way courtesy of Rikku when the teacher's back was turned ('_you're a bitch, kai, luv rikku xxxxx'_) did very little to dispel the smile lingering about her lips.

* * *

**a.n:** wh00t. i liked the slight zemyx thrown in here – i love that pairing so much. it makes me squee and go all fangirly on the insides. there was also a small akuroku reference in here, if anyone was sharp-eyed enough to catch it giggles i like very muchlies how this chapter turned out . hope you did too. well, until next time – see ya later, 'taters!


	5. lesson four

**teenager's guide on how to suck at life**

lesson four: how to feel lonely

* * *

**I**f any other child had received a letter home to their parents about misbehaving at school they'd have been quaking in their boots. Throughout the greater portion of the school day their stomach would've been tied up in knots, getting ulcers over mental images of their parent's reactions. When they left their yellow school bus via the mechanical sliding doors covered in splattered bug-guts and meandered their way up the crazily paved garden path their legs would've been reduced to jelly. It would be painful to arrive at the door, and nay impossible to fit the key into the lock.

But not so for Kairi – our little heroine had spent most of the day fantasising about Axel (even when she dashed about the netball field in PE covered in sweat, looking her most unsexy as she scored her third goal), and she'd barely given the ominous letter stuffed in her schoolbag any thought. When she arrived home via large yellow school bus she'd hop skippety jumped up to the front door, and shoved her key in the lock without any obvious difficulty.

She knew her mother wouldn't care about the letter, even if it said in large red font 'YOUR DAUGHTER HAS BEEN EXPELLED'. She would've shrugged, gone 'oh well', and then made a swift phone call to the public school asking if they could take on her daughter at such short notice.

And that would only ever happen if she was even at home, which she wasn't. The only things that reminded Kairi of Larxene's presence were the lacy women's lingerie in the tumble dryer and the note tacked onto the fridge that read: '_Out to work, back at eleven, cold lasagne is in fridge, heat it up for dinner. Larxene xxx_'.

Kairi frowned as she checked the fridge to find that, yes indeed, there was a plastic Tupperware box filled with lasagne nestled in-between a lump of brie and a cucumber that was speckled with mould.

She was desperately hungry (she hadn't dared going into the canteen at school, due to fear of having assorted food products being thrown at the head and then having nobody to sit with). She was so hungry that the phrase 'could eat a horse' applied.

But there was no horse – only cold lasagne. Just like last night. And the night before. And the night before that, too…

Kids at school complained of having to eat at the dinner table with parents every night, and why couldn't they sit in the living room with some ramen or some pizza for christ's sake? Well, Kairi had been living on noodles and pizza and macaroni and lasagne ever since Reno left to live in the big city, and it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Kairi's eyes flicked across row upon row of food in the refrigerator, bypassing the lasagne as it congealed in its plastic container, eyes narrowed in disgust. Most of stuff was little snacky tid-bits, nice if one wanted a quick bite to eat before catching the bus to school, but combined all the sugary treats would barely add up to one square meal. Certainly it wouldn't fill the girls aching stomach, growling and abused and ignored. There was some of Larxene's health stuff nested amongst vegetables and raw meat – low carb yoghurts and granola bars and the like. Kairi didn't really fancy any of this either, not that Larxene would notice if her expensive snacklets disappeared into the mouth of her only daughter. Larxene barely ate at home – barely ate at all. She was small and slight with a trim figure, and it was very rare to catch her nibbling on anything more calorific and fattening than a lettuce leaf.

The red-head sighed, and reached out in despair for the cold lasagne – the last resort.

Every day she scanned the fridge hopefully to see if it offered anything more exciting and exotic, but it was not to be – she'd have to choose the last resort for the past three years of her life, and she was sick of it.

She cracked open the stiff lid of the box her pre-prepared meal resided in, and tipped the hardened red gunge into a bowl. She frowned, and then popped the whole thing into the microwave, setting it for three minutes thirty, just as she'd done yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that, too.

Wanting something to sustain her until the food arrived in all it's unappetising glory, she reached up and opened one of the over-head cabinets, rootling around for one of Larxene's low carb chocolate bars. The blonde woman bought them for 'special treats', to 'spoil' herself.

That was a tad ridiculous, as Kairi had a strong suspicion that if any sort of chocolate passed her lips she'd be sick.

* * *

**L**arxene was a model – she had been for some time. That was the main reason why the fridge was never stocked and the mother was never home. The plants (reminders of one long-ago boyfriend, Marluxia) had all died due to neglect, despite Kairi's best efforts to water them, and the house was permanently covered in dust.

It was lonely, Kairi decided, as she attacked her lasagne with a fork and hit random buttons on the remote in an attempt to find something decent to watch.

It had been alright when Reno had still lived at there, because Kairi knew that whenever she arrived home her older brother would be there, waiting for her. He was also an excellent cook, and managed to make the most marvellous meals out of next to nothing.

As soon as the little red-head took three steps inside she'd be hit by the most glorious smell of pancakes, or waffles, or hot chocolate. Reno would greet her from the kitchen, and invite her to sit down at the table whilst he squired the waffles with syrup, ladled chocolate spread onto her pancakes or put whipped cream onto the top of her drink.

He would sit next to her and talk about his day, talk about school, talk about everything. And Kairi would giggle from over the top of her plate, stacked high with a mouth-watering assortment of food, glad to have a full belly and somebody to talk to.

Sometimes there would be several somebodies, as Reno was prone to bringing home friends from school. Kairi didn't mind – she liked the extra attention and she liked talking to Rude and Cloud and Tifa.

And then Reno finished school and moved out, and Kairi was left all on her ownio.

She didn't have anyone to lavish attention upon her, and she didn't have anyone to cook her fancy meals or help her with her homework.

Once she tried to make some pancakes by herself, but she burnt them into crisps and got batter all over the walls and mucked up a frying pan. Larxene didn't mind – didn't really notice much, but then again, she never seemed to notice either of her children, even when Reno had been there. She simply tutted and then proceeded to tell Kairi she was going out to a party and would she please, please, _pretty_ please tidy up her mess like a good girl, thank you.

And so that was how it had been for ages… Three long years of eating warmed up meals and staring blankly at the TV wishing for someone to talk to. For just a little bit of love tossed her way, just a little bit of attention.

Kairi smiled, switched the TV off and went to put her half-eaten box of lasagne by the sink.

She'd just had the most wonderful idea.

* * *

"**H**i, Reno!" chirruped the red-head, curled up into a ball on her yellow beanbag with the cordless phone tucked into the space between her head and shoulder, nestled up against her ear.

She had his number – he'd jotted it down on a piece of paper for her and Larxene just before he'd left in his red car with Rude and Cloud and Tifa for their new apartment in the big city. Kairi wasn't sure if Larxene's food-starved fashion-filled mind even registered the fact she had a son, let alone one who was working in an office for some guy called Mr. Shinra. Although the only fashions Larxene wore on her shoots were lace-covered, slutty lingerie like the ones she wore on a day to day basis, stuffed in the bottom the washing machine. Kairi had been proud of her mother, until she found the photos left carelessly on her mother's bed in a hunt for her missing sock.

"Kai-Kai! My favourite little sister! I haven't heard from you in _aggggggeeesssss_, how's it going?" asked Reno from his little apartment in Hollow Bastion.

"I'm your _only_ sister," grinned the girl, feeling glad that that was the case. Not only would any other little sister be just as depressed and lonely as she got from time to time, but she would also hog Reno's brotherly love. And Kairi found that idea very unattractive indeed. "Wellllp, nothing's _wrong_ here, per say… Larxene hasn't died from anorexia yet, and I haven't tried to make any more pancakes…"

"We must be thankful for these small miracles."

"But I'm feel really lonely… I miss you, and I hate being at home by myself all the time," concluded Kairi, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

"Awww, don't feel bad, little sport. Well listen, my fair princess Lovely Locks. You need not be lonely for much longer!"

"What do you mean?" asked Kairi, pressing the phone closer to her ear, curling up even tighter until she was in danger of becoming non-existant. How she adored such small things – talking with Reno, being able to kid her own body warmth radiating off her in bucketfuls was her older brother with his arms around her in a hug. Although such things seemed to be reserved for Tifa, now. According to lone amount of phone calls exchanged between the pair (Reno was usually at work or asleep, the lazy bugger that he was) Tifa was his new girlfriend.

"I mean that me'n Tif are going to come and visit my beloved family very, very, veeerrrrryyyy soon! We've got some special news for you'n Larx... Well, scratch that, _you_. Larxene's probably too worried about this week's latest diet of boyfriend or party to care too much about what I have to say."

The excited squeal that emitted from Kairi's lips could've shattered glass.

"What? Really? Really _really_?! You're going to come and visit?!"

"Yes, Princess, _really_," Reno laughed. "I would've come over sooner, but I'm praticaly nailed to the floor what with all the work at the office and the like… Speaking of which, I've got an errand to do for Mr. Shinra…"

Reno always had been a hard worker – in fact, the main reason he was always asleep had nothing to do with being a lazy bugger. It was everything to do with the fact that he worked his ass off 24/7, in a manner similar to Cloud, Rude and Tifa. Cloud, who worked for a company called SOLDIER, Rude, who worked in Reno's office and Tifa, who was a waitress.

"Awwww… You workaholic. All work and no play makes Reno a dull brother."

"Ain't it the truth… Look, I've gotta go Kai. Try to prevent yourself from hauling your dainty person off a bridge out of loneliness until I get here, 'kay?"

"Sure! Shouldn't be too hard, considering the nearest bridge is about fifty miles from here…"

The two said their goodbyes, and then both hung up, the static buzzing in Kairi's ear, insides churning with happiness as she discarded the phone, content to just sit there in the quiet, contemplating how non-sucky life could be when lady luck and karma weren't being total bitches.

* * *

**a.n:** and so the main reason kairi is such a total attention seeker is a crappy family life… who'd've thunk? hope you enjoyed the chapter! more kaixel fluff to come in lesson five. don't screw up your life too much till then:3


	6. lesson five

**teenager's guide on how to suck at life**

lesson five: how to get beaten up

* * *

**K**airi pushed her star-studded pencil case along the wooden desk, watching in mild amusement as it fell to the floor, only for her to pick it back up again and repeat. All the while she cursed the unseen deity that felt it necessary that sophomore class X6 had _three_ Maths lessons per week. Well no, scratch that – when I say 'Kairi cursed some unseen deity' I actually meant 'Kairi cursed Miss. Gainsborough, who was sat in her office right now laughing down upon the miserable students tossed about from classroom to classroom in the school cycle run under her iron fist'. Not that Kairi could really picture her as a power-mad dominatrix – not with her pink dress.

She noted dully that Naminé had abandoned her previous seat, and had instead commandeered one of the wonky chairs at the back, crushed into a corner, sandwiched between Rikku and the wall. Every once in a while she shot Kairi a nasty look, before returning to her pretence of doing any proper work, if only to make Zexion think she was learning something.

Nobody else really seemed to care if Zexion caught them twiddling their thumbs, braiding their hair or talking to the next-door neighbours – he was far to enraptured in his little speech about god only knows what to pay the rest of the class much heed, anyway. He was merrily lost in the land of whatthefuckery, unaware that Olette was asleep (again) and Riku was shooting an endless barrage of paper aeroplanes at Wakka.

Kairi herself was faring quite well after the whole 'nearly killed my best friend' business, surprisingly so. Sure, a handful of girls (mostly Rikku and Yuffie and Naminé at the back) were prone to giving her nasty glares every once in a while, but nobody had resorted to aeroplane throwing. Nobody had tried to stuff her out the back window of the bus and pass it of as an 'accident' and nobody had spat her as she walked through the hostile corridors of the school in the general direction of her form room.

Yeup – it was safe to say that poor old Wakka had it worse than she did, and he hadn't even done anything to deserve vicious pieces of paper being thrown at his eyeballs. Or maybe he had… Maybe he'd managed to beat Riku in a game of Blitzball last night – yep, that was probably it.

Feeling proud of herself for solving such a difficult problem, she gave herself a mental pat on the back and resumed her previous activates – namely, pushing her pencil off her desk and picking it back up again.

The monotony of the lesson was eventually broken by a frenzied knock on the door, said piece of wood swinging open before the words 'enter' were even on the tip of Zexion's tongue.

"What is it _now_, Demyx?" asked the lilac-haired teacher irritably, crossing his arms across his chest, eye not obscured by hair rapidly taking in his comrade's dishevelled appearance. Now, there are some people in this world not suited for their jobs, and Demyx was one of them – he caved in completely around kids and had a heart of marshmallow, thus meaning the little hooligans could run rings around him and he'd be powerless to stop them.

"The freshman… They're like _sin spawn_…" hissed the Maths teacher, shuddering. "They threw a calculator at my head! A calculator! One of them posh, expensive ones with all the buttons…"

It was bit like a scene from the Jerry Springer show – a random person shivering and shaking as they remembered a particularly horrific experience from childhood, before proceeding to have a mental breakdown and/or give the person sat next to them a black eye simply because 'they were existing too much'.

"Alright, Demyx," sighed Zexion, rubbing at his temple, almost as if he'd been the one locked up in a room of murderous teenagers throwing stuff at his head. Well, he had been locked up in a room of murderous teenagers, but he knew how to deal with them – he kept them so bored they'd be too busy snoring in their books to made a fuss. "How about I go back in there with you and I'll talk to them…"

"You would?" asked Demyx, looking instantly happier, almost as if a 100 volt megawatt bulb had lit up somewhere in his head. "Awww, thank you Zexy!"

Several children – the ones who weren't asleep, unconscious or dead – giggled appreactively at this new nickname bestowed upon their Maths teacher.

'Zexy' growled a bit, but didn't berate Demyx for his foolish nicknames – he knew that if he did it would prompt even more elaborate, stupid, eyebrow-raising snigger-worthy names, like 'sugarlump' or 'fishbob'.

With curt warning words that were 'not to misbehave' and should 'keep away from any pointed objects', the two teachers departed in a flurry of black material and closed doors.

And that was when it hit Kairi. A note, folded up ever so neatly and painstakingly by somebody who obvious had very long, sharp nails. It bounced off her cranium and landed on the tabletop – rather innocent looking to the untrained eye, the words '_to kairi xxxx_' scrawled across it in bright pink felt-tip. Sure, it looked perfectly harmless and sweet and friendly, but Kairi knew that handwriting. She knew that lack of capital letters. She knew all those unnecessary kisses. She knew all of those writing impediments and the girl that came with them.

Fingers trembling slightly, she unfolded the piece of paper over and over again to reveal a message.

'_ur a btch nd ur thnk ur so cool but ur nt. me'n yuff r gunna beat u up aftr clss. rikku xxxx._'

Even those kisses tacked on at the end (in pink pen, no less) couldn't dispel Kairi's fear that something very, very, _very_ bad was going to happen.

* * *

**S**he dawdled after class, taking such a long time to accomplish the boring, mundane tasks of closing her textbooks and zipping up her pencil case and placing every single piece of stationary in her bag that Zexion left, toted off to the staffroom by a smiling Demyx, grinning because he'd managed to keep his class of bloodthirsty freshmen under control for the last half hour of the lesson.

Kairi'd rather hoped that, by taking a millennia to put her things away, Yuffie and Rikku would eventually get tired of waiting for her outside class and leave. She didn't exactly fancy their false nails puncturing her skin or their long slim fingers wrapped around pieces of her red hair. Her skin and scalp were complaining already.

It was not to be – all her hoping had been in vain. That much was obvious, when she stepped out of class ten minutes into break time with her pink schoolbag slung over one shoulder. It was kind of hard to miss Rikku and Yuffie, what with them being full heads taller than her with very made-up hair, matchstick skinny to boot. The very epitome of 'popular'.

"You know," drawled Yuffie lazily, taking her place on the left of Kairi, blocking her exit. Immediately the girl swivelled to her right, only to find the blonde girl already had it covered. "I find it really hard to believe that somebody like _you_ would have a fight with your own best friend."

Rikku nodded in agreement, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth before she continued. "Especially over something so stupid – all she did was call you a slut, Kairi – s'not a punchable offence."

"It's true, too – apparently, you were spotted making out with _Riku_."

"I… You… I mean… _You what_?" asked Kairi bemusedly, floundering about for something to say that wouldn't incriminate her further.

"Riku. Captain of the Blitzball team. Long silver hair. Undeniably sexy. Sora's best friend. Andddd don't you dare try to deny it, you bitch. Everybody's saying it – you were making out with Riku. That was why Naminé got mad at you and called you a whore – I mean, how _dare_ you fuck around with your boyfriend's feelings like that?"

"You're mad. You're all bloody mad," Kairi attempted a casual laugh, hoping that this was just a part of some big, elaborate wind-up and that, any minute now, Naminé, Sora and Riku would jump out from the empty English classroom opposite and go 'FOOLED YOU!'. Complete with streamers and cake, for being such a 'good sport' about it. However, such an occurrence did not happen. Rather, Yuffie and Rikku drew in even closer, cornering her.

"Look! It's just a stupid rumour! I'd _never_ do that…"

"Yeah, but you _would_ punch your best friend in the face!"

"Did Naminé actually tell you that she saw me making out with Riku?"

"No, she tried to deny it – said it was a silly rumour."

"So there you go!" Kairi cried, glad to have made her point. "It never happened, it's a silly rumour, now would you please leave me alone? I need to get over to Science blocks and I've only got seven minutes le…"

"You're not going anywhere, Kairi," cooed Yuffie, placing her manicured hand on the girl's head, giving her hair a quick tug. "It's painfully obvious Naminé was just _saying_ that to protect you. I mean, everybody at school's talking about it – and everybody at school can't be wrong, can they?"

"You mean all the popular people are talking about it! The only reason you're not listening to me or Naminé is because we're not popular enough! Our words mean nothing to you! And why are you fighting me over Naminé, anyway, I know you don't even _like_ her!"

"That's right! We don't like Naminé, but we _do_ like Riku! And Riku's Sora's friend, isn't he? And Naminé goes out with Sora now – so maybe she could introduce us! We might have a shot at him… Or at least, we might've if **you** hadn't got there first, you bitch!" shouted Rikku.

Kairi … Well, she'd been expecting that punch.

She just hadn't expected it to hurt quite so much.

* * *

**Z**exion found the girl as he meandered down the corridor, arms filled with textbooks that needed depositing in the Maths room for the junior's next lesson with Mr. Xemnas.

She was huddled into a ball on the floor, arms wrapped around her legs as she sobbed onto the ugly carpet that Miss Gainsborough swore would be replaced by something more attractive. She was shivering, school shirt ripped as if she'd been clawed at by lionesses. Or jealous, bitchy schoolgirls with pointy nails…

"Kairi? Oh God, _Kairi_ – are you alright?" asked the panicked Zexion, discarding his books on the floor by the invalid. He dropped to his knees (most undignified for a teacher, and especially a teacher of Zexion's disposition) by the sobbing girl, poking her lightly in the side in an attempt to rouse her from the pits of doom and despair.

"Mmnn? Wha'?" she replied limply, folding in on herself like a deckchair as if expecting another kick at the stomach. "Whoissit?"

"It's Zexion, Kairi…" replied the teacher slowly, not really one for comforting students. That was more Demyx's speciality – Zexion was only ever good at commanding students, mostly to sit down, shut up and turn their books to page 69 (cue guffaws from the back courtesy of Riku, who was muscle-bound as he was immature). "Are… You going to tell me… What's wrong?" he asked with trepidation, not really wanting the sobbing teen to latch her dainty, tear-stained person onto his arm and howl about how crappy her life was and unfairness of it all. Then he'd _really_ be up the creek and down the paddle. "Do… Um… You want me to get Demyx?"

"No," muttered the girl, convulsing on the floor, head in hands. The tear-streaked lines down her cheeks were probably covered in dirt now, and fluff balls from the carpet. She whined and attempted to sit herself up, collapsing against the wall as she wiped the back of her hand across her eyes, blinking rapidly when the deed was done.

She really looked like shit – her mascara smudged across her face, some of it smeared across her hand, up her white school shirt. Her face was red and blotchy, eyes puffy, more tears forming and spilling down her cheeks, hair stuck against her face. She didn't cry like the popular people – a few quick tears and then a tissue, clean and simple, simple and clean. She had mental breakdowns. Zexion couldn't help but notice a scratch mark started at her forehead and wove it's sinister way down to the bridge of her nose, not deep enough to scar, but certainly deep enough to bleed.

"Well then… Do you want to go to the school nurse?" he asked, in what he hoped was a comforting sort of voice. It sounded dull and robotic even to his ears – god, he was no good at stuff like that.

"No… I want… I want to see _Axel_," she whined, the name prompting further tears.

Well, thought Zexion dully, _anything_ to stop her crying.

* * *

**a.n:** it was long and it was boring. i'm sorry bows head in same hopefully the next chapter is better! this story is about half-way done ;D hope you stick around to see the end!


	7. lesson six

**teenager's guide on how to suck at life**

lesson six: how to embarrass yourself

* * *

**Z**exion was not proving to be good company, as the pair traversed the winding corridors of the school. He was being silent – unusually so, for a man who liked to talk nineteen to the dozen in class – and Kairi was not about to prompt smalltalk or start a conversation. Not that she was in the mood to talk, given the state she was in. Especially not with her mascara smudged down from her eyes, across her cheekbones, sneaking stealthily southwards with each new deluge of tears.

"So... Um..." muttered Zexion, appearing to find the silence a bit disconcerting. That was hardly surprising - he blathered on so much in class he'd probably become accustomed to sound of his voice. Why keep quiet when you could bore everyone to death with pi and MC squared for an hour and a half (damn double periods – damn them to hell) until the bell went and lunchtime beckoned?

Kairi had once used her boredom in class 'productively' and had written a ballad called 'Ode to Junkfood' in the back of her book. It just wasn't fair – the Maths room was situated next to the canteen, and it's _reeeaaaallllyyyy_ hard to beat your brain into submission and focus on your teacher when your sense of smell is going into hyper drive and every time you breath in you get a noseful of french fries and noodles.

Every time the bell cut through one of Zexion's speeches, heralding lunchtime, Kairi would throw her things into her bag, sling it across one shoulder, grab hold of Naminé's arm and frog march her out of class, down the hall, into the canteen. They nearly always got into line first, ensuring they got the choicest of meals, a.k.a the edible meals.

This train of thought passed food and came to a halt at Naminé, Kairi's old best friend. And then, following the same train as it trundled along the same tracks, the image of Sora flitted across her mind, blurry and distorted like ripples in water.

That, in turn, created more water. Salty tears, to be more exact, welling up in her eyes and trickling down her cheeks at an alarming rate. Even wiping them away hastily with the backs of her hands did little to staunch the flow of teardrops.

Zexion's eyes widened in alarm, whatever he'd been about to say lost to the winds. Instead, he opted for a very 'caring': '_Kairi, please stop crying!'_. He was obviously worried' that he'd have an '_Alice in Wonderland_' situation on his hands – sea of tears and all that.

"B-B-But... You just don't understand!" muttered the girl, not sounding quite as threatening or diva-ish as the underline makes it out to be.

"Sure I understand," replied Zexion, choosing words from his very extensive vocabulary and stringing them together with utmost care. He didn't want to upset her further by saying something crass, but it wasn't like he could go 'yo lol innit i'm getting' down wiv da kidz lol'. He did have a reputation to keep up. "Everybody gets upset, it isn't something to be ashamed of... But it's not in your best interests to let the student body observe you at your most vulnerable, right?"

Kairi sniffled. "You don't have to talk like you've swallowed a dictionary. Not even the _English_ teachers talk like that."

"That's the problem with your era – you treat education like it's a bad thing."

"You're only about twenty-something! Your era _is_ my era – pretty much, anyway," responded Kairi, the tears subsiding a little as she conversed with her teacher. It was almost as easy as nattering to Naminé had been. If you scrub away all the meaningless titles people become just that – people. Not 'teachers' or 'teenagers' or any other stupid classification. Friends. That's how optimistic people see the world, at any rate.

"Well, it's reassuring to know I'm not prehistoric like Vexen yet."

"Yeah. He _is_ old," Kairi mused, conjuring up a mental image of her irate Chemistry teacher. Lined and hardly likable – he was so ancient the best thing to do with him would be to shoot him, stuff the carcass then flog it at a museum.

"Alright then, here we are," Zexion said, drawing to a halt outside Axel's office. "I must say, you look a lot better now, Kairi."

"Hmn," replied the red-head. "Well, er, anyway... Thanks for taking me here..."

"You're welcome. It wasn't like I could leave you there on the floor collecting dust."

"You've been spending too much time with Demyx. You know what?" asked Kairi, wondering whether she should tack the last bit on the end or not. Eventually the mental battle ceased, deciding that she would state what was on her mind, for the greater good. She'd be kicking herself all day if she let the opportunity slide.

"What?"

"I think Demyx really liiikkkeeesss you," she smiled, the joyous expression looking oddly out of place on a face that had been mottled with tears just a few minutes ago. A bit like a potato in a fruit bowl. A tad outlandish, if you will. "And I think you like him too."

And with those parting words (resulting in a scarletty tomatoey sort of blush from her teacher) she opened the door to Axel's office, stepping inside a void of dying potted plants and dusty pictures on the walls.

She felt a lot better now.

* * *

"**H**ey! Kairi!" cried Axel, the noise of the door swinging shut alerting him from his book. No, not book – upon further inspection (a tilted head and a squint of red-rimmed eyes) Kairi found it to be a manga, emblazoned with images of partially naked women with axes, knives and various other tools used to slice heads and stab limbs. Niiiicceeee.

Well, at least it wasn't _Maths is Fun_, a tediously boring hardback full of not-that-fun activities Zexion liked to give the children when he was feeling 'generous'.

Amongst the thirty or so in the class, every single page of every single book had been defaced in one way or another – from drawings to doodlings to felt-penned swear-words.

"Have you been in any more fights? Beaten up any more boyfriend-stealing bitches? Put any heads down toilets?" he inquired in a light-hearted nature, attempting to hide his incriminating manga in the drawer of his desk.

"It's okay – I noticed it anyway. Half of the kids in my class are into weirder stuff. Weirder than _Battle Vixens_," she shrugged. "And I never jammed any heads down toilets."

"One kid did," muttered Axel darkly. "I've been in this post a fucking _week_ and I've been sent a freak-show full of loonies. Nuts, all of them – completely hazel nuts. Got a really nice pair in an hour ago – two boys, Rai and Seifer. They like to burn things in such a way it makes pyromaniacs look bad. In fact, I'd bet this... this... this crappy dying planty-thingy that likes to sting me when I walk past it that you're the only normal person at this school, Kai-Kai."

"Yeah... A perfectly normal person who has _no friends_," Kairi replied bitterly.

"Ah well. Can't be helped if everyone else is retarded. So what's the problem today? I hope these visits don't become daily... No wait, scratch that, I hope they do. You're the only normal person around here, save a handful of teachers."

"Don't worry – I didn't beat up any more kids. I was the one who got beaten up."

"And you didn't try to fight back?"

"There were two of them! And they had fancy hair and manicured nails! How the hell was I meant to defend myself against _them_?" quired the female red-head, wincing slightly at the memory of purplish-pinky painted talons scraping against her skin, clawing at her face and tugging at her hair. If she wasn't all cried out she'd probably cry at the memory. It was an experience (make that ordeal) that she hoped never to go through again, as long as she lived.

"Point taken. So _why_ did they attack you?"

"They think I've stolen their imaginary boyfriend."

"Woah. You sure do get around, Kairi." Axel feigned surprise, eyes widened slightly. "You got a new boyfriend pretty damn quickly."

"Well, that's what they think," she muttered darkly, turning to glance at the door. She shivered at the sight of the wooden object, worried that Rikku and Yuffie would burst through it with burning torches and pointed sticks (and maybe a bunch of loganberries – you never know what's going on in the minds of popular people) and pound her into the ground again for 'squealing'. "Although, I'm under the impression they never think at all."

"You're probably right. Half the kids at this school don't seem to think at all..." Here Axel decided to shudder. Kairi did feel a bit sorry for him, even when it was meant to be the other way around – he was in a perfect position to meet every single individual at the school who had ten mothers and a bucketful of problems. "Don't know how Rai managed to get into an oversubscribed school like this – if it's meant to be so good how come I've met kids who's hobbies involve flushing heads down toilets?"

Kairi shrugged, a small smile on her face, moving forth to claim a chair by the desk.

"You were crying," said Axel in a matter-of-fact sort of voice, indicating the smudges under the girl's eyes.

"Mmmn."

Axel sighed. "Poor girl. Life's pretty damn sucky right now, isn't it?"

Kairi sighed, and nodded.

* * *

"**T**ifa! Hurry up! We'll be laaatttteeeee!" hollered the red-head, watching as the brunette galloped up the stairs, taking them four at a time.

"How can we be late if you didn't even tell them what time you'd be there?" replied the woman.

There was a long pause.

"Oh shut up! Why do women always take so loonnnnnggggg to get ready?" whined Reno, flailing his arms around in annoyance. If you didn't know Reno you'd have thought his behaviour was _odd_. But, as it was Reno, it was perfectly normal.

"Just because I care about my appearance!"

"Just because you take five hours to get ready... The traffic on the motorway won't wait for you whilst you nip back off upstairs for your mobile or your hair straighteners, you kn-"

And then he was cut off, thanks to his fiancé and a pair of Rude's boxers that had flown through the air and landed on his head.

"Thanks, Tifa. I appreciate it."

**

* * *

**a n: yay! I liked the end scene a loot, and the beginning scene... the middle scene was crap. But dunnwory... it'll get BETTER xP. 


	8. lesson seven

**teenager's guide on how to suck at life**

lesson seven: how to get in trouble

* * *

**S**he had been dreading the long, school-ward bound walk she'd have to face in the early hours of the morning (_too _early in the morning for Kairi's liking, the sun slip-sliding sleepily above the horizon line, spilling golden rays of warmth outwards onto the waking-up world).

All night long she'd tossed and turned in her bed, clutching her pillow for support and digging her pointed fingernails into the plush fabric. Partly so she had something firm to hold on to, as Larxene was not present to distribute hugs, and mainly to stop her teeth from gnawing at the delicate nails.

She resembled a little girl afraid of an on-coming thunderstorm. Curled up in a ball under her brightly-coloured blankets resembling a folded-up deckchair, hibernating in some godforsaken corner of a slimy garage, awaiting the summer months with anticipation. Awaiting the times when it would be dragged out from the darkness and put to use, self-conscious fashion freaks laying down upon it with a cocktail in one hand and a book about manicures in the other, desperately trying to achieve a tan.

School had passed like a bad montage in a 60s film, flying by with little event. Sure, when she'd skulked into English half an hour late due to her meeting with Axel, she'd attracted a few raised eyebrows. Yuffie had tried to tip her books and pencil case off her desk many-a time, too, but she decided against this 'humorous' game when Kairi had stabbed her hand with a blue ball-point that had previously been occupied with writing down a complete list of Shakespeare's plays.

Food Technology hadn't been overly bad, either. She'd ended up sharing a cooking area with Pence. At first she had been wary of him, as she didn't really know him or hang out with his 'clique' of friends (namely: Olette and Hayner). But he had a large heart to match his large stomach, and the two had started up a conversation over their strawberry cheesecakes (or, in Kairi's case, inedible goo). The pair had swapped funny anecdotes until the bell rang, and the red-head had grabbed her bag and exited her weekday torture session more formerly known as school with high hopes, her moogle-printed shoulder bag swinging against her legs and a plastic container of cheesecake tucked under one arm.

On the ride home she'd sat by herself, as per usual, and hummed random tunes to herself whilst staring at the scenery that flashed past the bug-splattered windows. On that day she'd tried counting houses along the streets, like every other day, and it seemed that, after the initial burst of weirdness after Maths courtesy of Rikku and Yuffie, life was sorting itself out again.

Hell, she wouldn't've been surprised if she'd bumped into Naminé on her way home, armed with an apology and an invitation to go to McDonald's for a bite to eat. Which she had done on previous occasions, knowing full well Kairi detested microwavable macaroni and cold slices of congealed pepperoni pizza.

But Naminé hadn't been there, and neither had Larxene – but what did the girl expect? If either actually had been there she'd probably have had a heart attack, so maybe it was for the best.

There had been a note tacked onto the fridge, as per usual, and a box of leftover Chinese takeaway stowed next to a mouldy tomato and something that could've been cheese if you looked at it from one angle and could've been ham if you looked at it from another (and squinted your eyes a bit).

And, as per usual, there had been nothing good on TV and no messages waiting for her on hotmail. So, with a flick of a button, she turned off the slow computer who's hobbies involved freezing up and making odd noises, and went off to bed. Early. Because there was nothing else to do.

And now it was not early. It was rather late, the moon hanging in the starless sky (damn city pollution). And there was still nothing to do. Apart from worry about school the following day and what horrors it was sure to bring.

Kairi would be lucky to still have her nails in whole pieces when the sun rose in, roughly, the next six hours.

* * *

"**K**airi Panettiere?" asked the teacher, leering at the messy-haired youth from over the top of the register. Her face was pretty straight – sides from the twisted upper lip, of course, in the ghost of a smirk – but Kairi could tell she was laughing on the inside. Laughing, laughing, laughing _eevvveeerrrrr_ so raucously at the silly, messy unkempt little girlie who'd woken up too late and forgotten to pack her lunch or her schoolbag properly, flying onto the bus with one shoe on and one shoe off, hair flyaway and shapeless. Stupid bee-yatch.

At least she wasn't wearing her skirt around her head like a bandanna and her shirt as a sarong – she had enough bed-head sense to at least place her articles of clothing on the right parts of her body. Not necessarily the right way round, of course.

Well, it just goes to show what happens if you stay up until two fretting about raised eyebrows and whispered comments and iced bitchiness from your own best friend at school. And her evil lackeys with dyed hair and pointy fingernails and the hots for Riku.

"Here, Ms. Edea," mumbled the girl, self-consciously patting her crazy hair down. She felt like a tramp thrown into a world of girls and boys who'd stepped straight from their beds, into their showers then into their crease-free Abercromie and Fitch outfits. And here Kairi was; sleepy dust in her eyes and gunk under the fingernails, a cheap jacket thrown over a kitty-cat printed top, outfit complete with a scrubby set of trainers and washed-out blue denim jeans. Generally she'd make more of an effort, but she was so rushed for time she hadn't had a chance to ransack her wardrobe for her favourite pink dress or tank top combination.

"_Good_. Good. **Good**. Riku Gallagher?"

"Here, Ms. Edea," replied the silver-haired teenage heart-throb, several girls in the class swooning at the mere mention of his name and voice. Together they made for a deadly combination, like mixes acids and bases, and several females subjected to seas of raging hormones had already passed out onto their desks.

Kairi didn't mind much – as long as everybody had stopped paying attention to her and her ramshackle appearance it was A-OK in her books.

* * *

"**K**airi? Kairi? Hey Kairi? Kairi Pan-_et_-ti-**ere**!" cried the all too familiar sugar-sweet voice of Rikku, emphasising the syllables in her last name with a wide array of bolds, italics and underlines, hoping the girl would look up from her Biology book and pay attention to the long string of insults sure to spill from her mouth like raw sewage.

"**What**?" growled the sleep-deprived girl irritably. She'd been hoping to catch up on her forty winks throughout Miss. Quistis Trepe's class, in manner similar to Olette. The brunette was, however, suspiciously bright-eyed and busy-tailed this glorious morning. Her head was even elevated from her book, not resting on her desk.

"I hope you remember what me'n Yuff told ya yesterday," she chirruped in head-hurtingly chipper tones. She sounded like she _hadn't_ reduced the girl to a weeping, bloody pulp on the floor yesterday, leaving her to Zexion's harsh, cruel judgement (which hadn't turned out to be that harsh, actually). "And keep away from Riku."

"I was planning to, anyway. I don't _like _Riku."

"Well, that's just as good, as I'm pretty damn sure he don't like **you**. But then again, who _would_ like you? Your hair's a mess and you don't even have any make-up on! I mena, before you looked half-way presentable, but now you've gone horribly downhill! Did Naminé pick out your clothes for you in morning? I mean, of course she would've – your mother doesn't like you! Does she, Kairi? Does she? Does she does she does she?!"

Kairi tried to blot out Rikku's nasty words as if they were little more than static – an annoying background noise in a phone conversation. But she couldn't hide the fact they were started to puncture her thick skin and wriggle around in her heart, burning it up into a giant inferno of reds and yellows and golds and oranges.

_Why_ was Quistis doing anything about it?

Maybe she couldn't hear Rikku's taunts above the sound of her own voice, lecturing the class on food chains and number pyramids and blah-de-blahs and the like. Or maybe she could hear, but didn't want to disrupt the class for the welfare of one little girl. That's what Larxene saw her as, anyway – one little girl, who could sit and home and rot from pre-heated food whilst she went off on fashion shoots.

Kairi thought she saw Naminé twitch at Rikku's words, but when the two old friends met eye-to-eye she looked away, as if ashamed. She obviously wasn't going to stick for her. Nobody ever did. Not even her own _mother_ gave a damn about her.

"Don't think I don't know who your mother is, Kairi! She's _Larxene_. Larxene Panettiere! The slutty model who poses in magazines! Adverts for thongs and stuff – _that's_ where her name appears! I guess, compared to see-through bras, you become pretty non-existent, right? I mean, who cares about **Kairi**? She's just a worth-"

"**SHUT****UP**" screamed Kairi, diving forth over her desk with fists raised, slamming up into the blonde girl's unguarded nose.

There was a spurt of blood, a scream of 'YOU BITCH!', a handful of paper towels thrust up Rikku's nose courtesy of a squealing Rinoa and a gasp from Ms. Trepe.

Shortly followed by a: "_Go to the _head's _office, Kairi_!"

* * *

**T**he head of the sophomore year was an odd duck by all accounts; Luxord Downes, his name was, never seen without a stack of playing cards in one hand. One sure sign that the apocalypse was dawning would be an image of Luxord sans his deck of cards, fire and brimstone dancing about in the background.

"Ah. _Kairi_. Kairi. **Kairi**," sighed Mr. Downes, gesturing towards a seat by his desk, all the while shuffling his trusty deck of cards. No mean feat, I can assure you. "Please, Miss. Panettiere, take a seat."

The girl obeyed his wishes, walking forth into the green-carpeted room. She couldn't help but think of mucus, as she gingerly sat down on the four-legged, decorative piece of furniture. Legs crossed, hands on lap, head up – the very image of grace and poise; that was Kairi.

"Now, I understand that you've been sent here due to some misbehaving in class. Is that correct?" he asked, gaze not at all scathing like Edea's had been earlier that day. He was kind and caring – a bit like Santa. An _English_ version of Santa.

"Well… Sort of…" she muttered, staring down at her interlocked fingers. All the while wondering how the hell Luxord knew why she'd been sent to his office before the verbalised version of accounts had even exited her mouth. Maybe he had hidden cameras in his office, behind that picture of the Queen of Hearts, perhaps? If she could just crane her neck a little more that way…

"Well, Kairi. I know you're a smart girl, and I know you wouldn't go around class hitting people willy-nilly. So, pray tell me: _why_ did you hit the ever-charming Miss. Strong in Biology?"

"Well… She was… She was…"

It was hard to say exactly what she had been doing, considering her words had managed to peel back so many layers of the girl until the shivery, shakey centre remained – a shell. All her fears and worries and anxieties wrapped up in one, the happy-go-lucky Kairi coating it like sugar sprinkled over cornflakes. How could you sum that up into words? Especially if there's a forty-something year-old adult observing you thoughtfully, ready to shoot down all your reasonings with a typical '_sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me_'.

"She said… Horrible things about… About… About me and my mother…" she muttered, knowing it sounded pathetic. Utterly pathetic. But she was never very good with English, and now the words were sticking in her throat. She couldn't explain. But it didn't look like she had to – Luxord was nodding his head sympathetically.

"It's alright, Kairi. I understand. I won't punish you for it because you were provoked, but maybe it would be better if you could tell somebody how you feel about it properly? I know I may look a bit intimidating…"

Kairi nodded silently, biting her tongue to remind herself she could still speak if she wanted too. Which she didn't want – she was just worried that she'd end up mute forever. It was probably the longest time she'd ever spent not talking.

"Why don't you toddle off down to the guidance counsellor's office? Axel, his name was… Axel…" Luxord repeated the name as if to confirm the fact that Axel **was** his name, not something ludicrous like 'Prince Wallis'.

"Hmn… Okay," Kairi replied softly, getting up from her seat. "… Well, um… Thank you for your time."

And then she left, leaving Luxord to shuffle his cards in peace and quiet.

* * *

**F**our days.

Four fuckin' days.

It took **four days** to get from Hollow Bastion to Traverse Country, swerving through vast amounts of traffic, red and blue and yellow cars beetling along never-ending stretches of concrete motorway and winding through bumpy country lanes.

They'd only been sat in the car for about a day, opting to spend the night in a cheap fleapit motel where the 'free continental breakfast' equalled a bowl of soggy cornflakes and two pieces of limp white toast.

Tifa and Reno had been glad to be shot of the place, obviously, but they weren't exactly thrilled about the prospect of sitting in the red car (of D00000M) for another ninety hours or so, listening to bad songs on the radio and shouting at equally bad drivers who felt the need to put them into early graves.

"Would've been easier to _fly_. And cheaper – we wouldn't have to worry about stopping for fuel every three fuckin' hours," muttered Tifa darkly, black circles under her eyes indicating a lack of sleep. Which was probably the cause of her recent bitchy bad-nature.

Reno was too tired to argue that much.

* * *

**a.n:** yayness! You better appreciate this update-eth! Hopefully there will only be two more chaptoids and then the epilogue xP. I really like how this flowed – took me about three hours to write, but I think it paid off . Twas a good chappie, compared to the other ones that were not-so-good. ;D You gets brownie points if you can figure out why certain characters had certain surnames.

**xx skitts**


	9. lesson eight

**teenager's guide on how to suck at life**

lesson eight: how to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time

* * *

**I**t was the first time that Kairi found herself waiting anxiously outside the red-head's office, mostly due to the fact that, as soon as she knocked on her door, she'd been let into the room. Done up nicely, I may add, with gently dying plants and funny-coloured carpets that must've been designed by somebody with poisoned eyesight. You'd have to have been very stupid or very blind to design such an ugly carpet, the reds and hotpinks and random green bits _screaming_ at each other and anybody else who entered the room.

Today, however, was shaping up a little differently; when the girl had rapped her knuckles against the wood Axel had yelled back in response '_could you just wait outside a bit, please?!_'. Ever so professionally, of course (-cough cough-).

And so here we find our female protagonist, hands jammed into the pockets of her washed-out denim jeans, rolling around dust balls that had culminated in aforementioned pockets through two-and-a-bit years of her owning them. Her large eyes were focused on an large, in-yer-face poster blu-tacked lopsidedly on the yellow-painted wall opposite the one she had claimed as her own for leaning purposes.

The poster was covered in so many pictures (mainly of cartoon teenagers with impossible hair and large eyes studded with thick lashes, some demoniacally happy and others cast down into the dark pits of emoish desperity and the like) that Kairi had to squint at it through half-lidded eyes as a safety precaution. It was a bit like looking at the sun – stare directly into it's deadly rays and be scarred for life. And she most definitely did not want to go blind, and neither did she want to spend the rest of her life manufacturing bad carpets in some god-forsaken factory in Taiwan.

Across the myriad of brightly-coloured teenagers (most of which appeared to be psychos, judging by their exaggerated frowns and smiles) there was, written in bold, pink, cursive: '**PEOPLE WHO CARE MAKE SAD ChiLDREN GLAD ChiLDREN'**.

Kairi could've puked at the corniness of it all. Seriously, who the _hell_ came up with those 'witty' captions?

Next to that poster was another rather similar to it, but this snippet of pink-painted text was denouncing the evils of racism, segregation and bullying. Accompanied by an amazingly _crap_ illustration of a trembling, dark-skinned girl surrounded by taller and scarier children. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

_Pfft. Whiner,_ muttered inner-Kairi darkly, withdrawing her hands from their resting place in her pockets, placing them behind her head as she mused over the poster. _It's not like she'll have enough sense to hit 'em back, is it?_

"Thank you!" chirruped a 'i-just-raided-the-cookie-jar-and-got-high-from-sugar' sort of voice, alerting Kairi away from her dozy day-dreams and towards the open door of Axel's office. "Thank you for your help! I'm sure Roxas'll apprecia-"

And then Sora was cut off, falling over backwards into the health hazard that was Kairi. His arms pinwheeled about rather comically, fingers reaching up and grabbing hold of the nearest solid surface in a desperate attempt to stay upright and regain what little shreds of dignity he had left. Unfortunately for Kairi, the nearest solid surface happened to be her arm.

Sora grabbed hold of the limb protruding from the sleeve of her multi-coloured T-Shirt. The pair were pulled down to the floor via our good friend gravity, falling painfully in a mess of appendages and body parts.

Of course, Naminé didn't see the twisty turny fally part.

All she saw, on her way to the toilet, was the two teenagers, sprawled across each other in rather perverse poses. In fact, it looked an awful lot like Sora was attempting grope Kairi. Well, it would've done to the untrained eye. If you looked hard enough it would've become quite clear (as porridge) that Sora was actually trying to push the girl off him, apologising the whole time with a red face. But to Naminé, it probably looked more like he was embarrassed about being 'caught in the act'.

"My God! Sorry Kairi! Sorry Naminé! Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry!" burbled Sora, his words becoming little more than the nonsensical garbled rubbish of a madman, extracting his foot from under Kairi's butt. He staggered to his feet in the manner of a _drunken_ madman, lunging at Naminé whilst rattling off a long spiel of 'sorry's. Over and over again, attempting to explain (and doing it badly, as it is hard to convey one's true feelings with a single word and two syllables).

"I hate you! You horrible, cheating, scheming _bitch_!" screamed Naminé in anger, pale face turning purple in her state of outrage. She knocked Sora aside with one deft, fluid movement of her arm, the boy's hip crashing against the wall. A poster heralding the news '**HUGS, NOT DRUGS**' became detached from said wall, falling down onto Sora's head like a comical, over-sized hat.

And then Axel stepped in, attempting to halt the barrage of slaps and punches that were being exchanged between the two females.

"I didn't mean to! I fell onto her, Nami!" cried Sora in desperation, running forth and seizing the blonde's arms. Naminé batted him aside yet again with relative ease, diving towards Kairi and slamming her cranium against the wall, hands in her hair, pulling.

A mixed string of insults and swear-words emitted from Kairi's mouth, as she attempted to knee Naminé in the stomach.

She never had to, however, because the red-headed guidance counselor got in between them and their re-enactment of the First World War (betch-slap style) before any more blood could be shed. The two girls were torn apart roughly by his strong hands, the mere presence of Axel seeming to silently bring along the mutual agreement of a 'ceasefire' between Kairi and Naminé.

"Alright! Sora, get back to class! Kairi, in my office! Naminé, hurry up and go to the toilet! **Quick**. Before I tell Luxord about you and your _despicable _behaviour!"

The three teens hastened to obey the tall scary man. Red heads are known for their fiery tempers, after all, and a pair of blazing chakrams wouldn't look at all out of place in the man's hands right about now. Believe me: when I say Axel looked angry, I **mean** Axel looked angry. As in Axel looked pissed off, ready to decapitate anybody who dared not obey his orders. His eyeliner'd eyes were narrowed, mouth twisted into a scowl and all.

Naminé shot one last token '_evil glare_ ©' at Kairi before hurrying off her way, not wanting to invoke Axel's wrath further and run the risk of having a pointed stick shoved through her middle.

Axel growled slightly at her retreating form, a bit like a Labrador that's just spotted the postman. He really did look like he was about to shove a pointed stick into her hide, as he turned around on the spot and ushered Kairi into his office.

* * *

"**I** don't believe how _anyone_ could do anything so horrible to you! Especially your old best friend! It was just _one_ stupid accident – one measly little accident - and she tried to rip your face off!" growled Axel, pacing his office in an attempt to staunch the urge to smash something. He had to get his energy out somehow and this was the best way, as breaking windows was a big no-no in Aerith's books.

She'd poured her heart and soul into the running of the school and she wouldn't stand for anybody hurting what she'd tried so hard with. And that was probably why Axel was pondering buying a dartboard with Naminé's face on it.

He'd dealt with Kairi and her problems over the course of the past two days, which was hardly the same as running a school for seven long years. But he also felt like he'd poured his heart and soul into helping the girl, and he'd spent hours trying to cheer her up and stop her tears. He'd pieced her back together ever so carefully from a sobbing wreck to something that vaguely resembled a human being.

And then **this** had to happen, all because a some stupid people did some stupid things at the most inconvenient of times. Lady luck was a bitch, to be sure.

"Don't get too cut up about it. _Everyone's_ treating me like this lately. I don't see why Naminé should be any different..." muttered Kairi darkly.

She didn't look like she was too bothered about it but Axel had grown to know the girl. He could tell she was faking bravado thanks to her far-too-rigid pose and her fingernails that were stuck in her mouth, teeth nibbling along the white lines delicately.

"Don't do that, Kai," he said, tone softer. He made his way towards her and prised her stubborn fingers from her mouth, nursing the drool-splattered bitten stumps absent-absentmindedly as he spoke. "She was _horrible_ to you – deserved every slap she got. You've got a pretty impressive right hook, you know?"

"Thank you..." mumbled Kairi in response, immensely flattered. She was finding it hard to speak as he was practically holding her hand (), great clouds of prettily-patterned butterflies fluttering around in her stomach. Her heart was also doing that corny poundy flippy thingy that tends to happen in cliché romance novels, books that Kairi tended to avoid at all costs. She hated them – ream after ream and page after page of boring, pointless, pathetic drivel about 'love' and the like. She could've composed a ballad about how Axel's touch felt, but it was so unnecessary. Couldn't you just settle for a '**it felt nice**' and be done with it?

Because it did feel nice.

Very nice.

"And I mean, she had no right to flip out like that! I mean, it's not like you even _love_ Sora, is it?"

Was it?

Maybe she had once, but now the idea of 'loving' Sora seemed absurd. Silly. A tad _ludicrous_, if you will. Because, even when she had been going out with the boy, her heart had never done the uber-fast triple-paced beating thingy it was doing right now, and flutterby butterflies never congregated in her inner organs. She might've _said_ she'd loved him, but, thinking back to it now, she hadn't. Not _really_. She'd stuck by him for bragging rights, nothing else. And when Naminé had stolen him she'd only slapped her to make a scene. To get attention. But she was getting far too much of it now – and it wasn't nice attention, either. Notoriety is a _bad_ thing. A _bad _bad **bad **thing. And she wanted no part in it, not anymore.

Naminé had hit her, not out of hate, but out of _love_. She had loved Sora and, in a platonic, friendshippy sort of way, she loved Kairi, too. And it hurt her to see them together. She hadn't slapped Kairi because she'd wanted attention, far from it. She was a shy person who hated having the spotlight thrown upon her. So that was the only explanation.

"No. I never loved Sora," she said softly, staring down at her feet. She had a feeling that if she looked into Axel's eyes she'd wither and die, just like his motley collection of brittle brown plants in their bright banana pots. "But Naminé did. Still does. And I think she deserves him."

Kairi sighed and stood up, knowing what must be done.

"I'm going to go and apologise to Naminé. I've been a crap friend lately."

* * *

**K**airi finally dared to cross the threshold of the canteen for the first time that week. Before she'd been too afraid to enter the sea of ravenous, food-deprived students because she knew she'd be unable to find somebody to sit next to. And eating by yourself in a room filled from top-to-bottom with kids is the equivalent of wearing a flashing neon sign that says '**i AM A FriENDLESS LONER WiTH NO LiFE. THROW ThiNGS AT MY HEAD'**.

But, if Naminé accepted her apology she wouldn't have to flit about the school by herself anymore. She could link arms with Naminé again, just like old times. God, she missed old times.

The girl received her change from the burly dinner lady dressed to impress in her pink apron stained with fat, grease and other such unmentionables, attempting to hold her tray aloft whilst stowing her munny safely away in her purse, free from the thieving fingers of the freshmen (they really were shifty-looking; no wonder Demyx feared them so). After that complicated task had been completed the girl gave the room a swift once-over with her baby blues, eyes locking onto the sheeny-shiny platinum blonde head of Naminé with little difficulty. It was the whole 'trained at spotting her amongst crowds' thing coming back, even if it hadn't been in use for the past couple of days.

She cut her way through the crowds of milling kids that were going back to the front for a piece of strawberry cheesecake or a replacement knife for the one they'd knocked onto the floor or some free sachets of tomato sauce they'd forgotten to collect.

After one ordeal she faced another, as the two shoulder Kairis battled it out, laying down the pros and cons of her (not-so-brilliant) plan and then tearing them into itty-bitty pieces.

But her stomach-churning, gut-wrenching, liver-twisting angst-filled mental battle of wits and wills proved to be all in vain – she needn't have worried.

As soon as Naminé caught sight of her she dissolved into salty tears, abandoning her stone-cold, untouched pizza for Kairi's warm embrace, the two girls hugging as if the whole stupid boyfriend argument had never happened. Kairi shifted her tray about so her fork wasn't digging into Naminé's middle, eventually deciding the best thing to do would be to plonk it down on the table.

"I'm so sorry, Kairi!" cried Naminé, and the red-head knew she meant it. Naminé was a softie at heart, and was unable to hold a grudge for more than five seconds. It must really have eaten her up inside, ignoring Kairi the past few days and acting like she didn't matter to her. Because she did._ She did_. She did. **She did**. So much. "I was going to apologise earlier! I swear I was! But Rikku and Yuffie starting hanging around with me and I was worried that they'd start bullying you if I went near you. And then I saw you with Sora... And you don't know how much it hurt, Kai, because I love Sora so much and I love _you_ because you're my best friend! And then Sora told me what had happened and... And... God, I'm so sorry! I flipped out, I know I did! It's all my fault..."

"No, Nami! S'not _your_ fault. I hit you first."

"But I stole your boyfriend!"

"But I never really liked him in that way... I was just fooling myself... And," here Kairi attempted a smile, "you look better with him anyway. So... I guess... I'm sorry, too."

* * *

"**R**eno? Are you sure it's wise to drive along a country road in the dark?" inquired Tifa anxiously, squirming about in her uncomfortable seat. She was worried – the 'shortcut' Reno had favoured over the motorway was built up of twists and turns and other things guarenteed to make driving in the dark hell on earth.

They had been driving for quite some time, stopping off to eat snack-like food at petrol stations, and it was understandable that Reno would get tired of that malarkey after a while, when the long journey stopped feeling like an adventure and more like a pain in the ass. And Tifa did want to get to Larxene's house ASAP, no doubt about it... But she couldn't help but feel it would wiser to stay on familiar roads, where there was less of a chance they'd get lost.

"Sure it is, honey! We _will_ get there, and this happens to be the quickest way."

"But it's dangerous! I mean, what if more traffic comes along? And they won't be able to see us – the headlights smashed, remember? What if something happens? I **told** you to stop and get them fixed but you wouldn't listen..."

"Oh, stop being the voice of negativity, Tif. It'll be f i n e, trust me. There are no cars on this road, so why worry? Nothing bad'll happen, I promise."

"You _promise_?"

"That's what I said, wasn't it? And I never break my promises. Never. **Ever**."

* * *

**a.n:** wh00t! I hope you enjoy. The last two parts of this chapter were hell to write. And I think they're pretty crap. But I liked the rest. The rest is gut :3

**xx skitts**


	10. lesson nine

**the teenager's guide on how to suck at life**

Lesson nine: and when it looks like it's getting better...

* * *

**Y**ou may have, in your short little life, been witness to one of many TV shows featuring inept and unintelligent policemen: red-faced and rounded, your typical Mr. Plod.

This, however, is simply not the case in the 'real world'. For you see, the media was designed to traffic falsities, rumours and exaggerations around the numerous homes and TV networks of the world.

The policemen of today's good and honest world do nit squander time sat toasty and warm in their stations, accompanied by a large plate of doughnuts somethered in pink goo and some token sprinkles. They don't grease up their fingers courtesy of large slices of pepperoni and cheese pizza with double cheese, double pepperoni and extra-thick crust. And they most certainly don't let the 'bad guys' slip through their fingers like sand in an hourglass. They sort out suicide attempts and burglaries, people parking in no parking zones and other problems that run rife in the 21st century.

They are, on the whole, model citizens, tarred with the same brush and stamped with the same sticker as doctors and dentists are: '**friends of society**'.

Xigbar and Xaldin are good examples of policemen in their prime (despite the fact they sounded like a good cop/bad cop duo from a very bad and not-so-good TV comedy from the early 80s).

Sure, they liked to joke and drink, but good humour was running horribly low that fine, crisp morning. Or, as the two policemen had dubbed it, 'the day after the crash'.

And there was 'the crash', in all its bent, broken, twisted, turned, sliced'n'diced glory. It was fair to say the wreckage looked impressive, bits of metal framework and car parts thrown about by the sidewalk in the early morning sun. The stray passing motorists on this secluded stretch of country road were all giving it a wide berth, almost as if their shocked expressions and curious glances were bestowing upon it the respect it deserved.

Surrounded by banana-yellow caution tape - reams and reams if it - and left to rot in the thinning tallgrass, it truly was impressive. That and a little scary - real proof of how dangerous such small country roads could be.

"They must have been driving at night, the silly fools," boomed the heavily sideburn'd Xaldin, standing at an impressive 6'5, wide and stockily built like a tank with hairy, gorilla arms. He was almost as horrific and strangely awe-inspiring as the wreck he was examining.

"Ah, yes. And if they didn't know the roads... Well... I guess this wreck speaks for itself. Stupid, trying to drive across unfamilar tracks in the dead of night, especially little country routes like this. They'll have swerved off course, judging by the muddy tyre tracks."

Here Xigbar sighed, pushing a few strands of his greying hair behind one ear as he did so. He'd probably been very good looking in his youth, but it appeared time had not been kind to him. Neither his job, come to that. The missing eye and scar across his lined face could be traced back to a dusty, reddish-coloured brick thrown haphazardly in his direction as a mugger attempted to flee the scene of the crime. Now his eyepatch, coupled with his policeman's outfit, just looked ridiculous. A tad outlandish, even. In fact, his attire bore resemblence to an indescisive little child wearing the entire contents of his dressing-up box.

"The headlamps were broken, too," Xaldin observed, jotting down the details of the crash in his trusty notebook that spent a great deal of its days in his front pocket and at crime scenes. "The poor, mad fools."

"This was a _suicide_ mission - complete madness," Xigbar sighed again, with the air of a man who'd seen too many things in his life. "Ah... This was, if I'm very much mistaken, a red Heartless brand automobile. One of their newer models: a Defender X03. Built too be flashy. No good at all for roads like this - steering mediocre, at most. Built for speed. Have you got this all down, Xaldin?"

The burly man grunted in response, finishing his final piece of short-hand notation with a flourish of blue ballpoint. Said ballpoint pen was later returned to the dark confines of his pocket, alongside the note book.

"Well? Shall we look inside?" inquired Xaldin, gesturing towards the bent-in and misshapen doors of the vehicle. "Check for survivors?" But he sounded doubtful. What were the odds that anybody would still be alive and kicking amongst all that mangled machinery?

Xigbar nodded, and together the two men pulled at the unyielding doors of the Defender.

Roughly five minutes later (long enough for sweat to form on glistening brows) the door was pulled back, revealing the scene of utter destruction and decimation it had tried to conceal from the watchful pair of brown eyes.

There was a man slumped forwards in his seat, bent over under the sunken in roof with limbs at an impossible angle. The position he was lying in could've been described as comical, if it weren't for the fact that shiny pieces of metal had become embedded in his pale flesh, dried blood frozen in jagged lines across his youthful face.

He was so _young_. So **innocent**. And oh so very dead. Pushing up the daisies, to coin a well-known phrase.

It was hardly to be expected.

Next to his listless body was another equally as lifeless form. A young woman, long strands of brown hair tumbling about her frame, obscuring much of her face. She looked peaceful, red lips visible amongst a sea of brunette. Rosy red lips that were stuck in an eternal pout, as if questioning why life had to be so unfair.

Only...

Only her expression wasn't quite so eternally unwavering, features cold and set in stone.

She was _moving_, albeit ever so slightly. Chest heaving up and down under a bulk of heavy, mangled metal. Lips trembling, eyelids quivering, fingers making endless clenching motions. Attempting to hold onto life and latch onto salvation. Bruised and battered and broken.

But unmistakably alive.

Merely unconscious. A horrible imitation of death, but with some obvious flaws in the ruse.

"Thank the good Lord," praised Xigbar. "Thank Him as long as there's still some mercy left in the world."

* * *

**"S**o you're not mad anymore?" inquired Sora hopefully, staring beseechingly up at Kairi through his long thick lashes ('_girly lashes_,' he had often been heard to remark with a trademark 'girly' pout).

He certainly hoped she wasn't, because he had a sudden strong urge to link arms with Naminé as the odd ensemble walked through the over-polished corridors of the school towards their first lesson.

Maths. With Zexion. _Bleh_

Double bleh with a cherry on top.

Only cherries were nice, and Maths was such a boringly _boring_ subject that it would be little more than a sin to associate anything nice with it.

So maybe the bleh was topped off with slugs and snails and puppy dogs' tails. Sora stil wasn't exactly clear on the whole matter, due to the fact he was still busy fighting the urge to cling to the blonde for moral support.

What if Kairi was still mad and she ended up throwing numerous pointy objects in his direction if he ever-so-casually wound an arm around Naminé?

But if Sora didn't get a reassuring 'Maths'll be alright' hug from his girlfriend then he'd collapse half-way through the lesson like a tent without its poles. Annnddd there was the small fact that it was _Roxas_ who was meant to cause his mummy darling and daddy dearest the most trouble. It was written in the stars, for heaven's sake! It was bad enough having a delinquent son who liked to desecrate the boys' toilets and set fire to squirrels. Having a son that fainted in class because he didn't get his daily dose of huggage would just be too much - the final push that would send his parents over the edge.

"Mmmmnnnope," chirruped Kairi merrily, adopting a seraphic tone of voice. She was just too content with life to get annoyed at anything, really.

The sun was attempting to shine through streams of carbon dioxide that was slowly microwaving the planet, the birds were all dying due to air poisoning and chemicals and - the cherry on the icing of the cake - a large group of cattle had been killed to supply Kairi and Naminé with the burgers and chicken nuggets they'd dined on yesterday after school. That, and a promised sleepover/DDR marathon at Naminé's house over the upcoming weekend, was enough to keep any teenager happy through the greater part of life.

"I'm fine. You can cuddle Nami, Sora. You big _baby_," she teased good naturedly, all Miss Sunshine and Light as she deposited her schoolbag by the front door of the class, picked out her Maths equipment from amongst the array of multi-coloured books in her bag and sauntered up to her new seat.

In between Sora and Naminé.

Not even Maths (gasp!shock!horror!) could darken her mood.

* * *

**"S**o, um... Who won?" inquired Kairi, bending down on her cheap, unstable orange chair in a 'daring' attempt to rescue her star-studded pencil case from the dusty floor. Well, if you take the fact that when I say 'unstable' chair I mean 'extremely wobbly, badly-balancing, just-escaped-from-the-circus' chair, the simple action of retrieving a fallen contained sounds a lot less like a walk in the park and a lot more like a death sport. It could rival glass eating, that's for sure.

"I did, obviously," Naminé replied with an eye roll, wiping a few stray pieces of lint and dustbunny off her fluffy pink pencilcase. "I am the best at throwing things the furthest."

"No way!"

"Yes way!"

"Unlikely!"

"Likely!"

"Quiet!" shouted Zexion, his dulcet tones cutting through the girls' stupid argument about who could slide a pencilcase the quickest and the furthest off a table like a bread-knife. "Quiet, _please_."

Here he tutted at how juvenile it all was, picking up the red-head's piece of stationary for her. His excuse for his 'kind' actions was that he didn't want Kairi to fall off her chair and bash her head on the floor, dislodging teeth.

"Thank you!" beamed Kairi, catching the pencilcase that was thrown at her head courtesy of Zexion.

"Miss Panettiere. I think you're getting a little overexcited. I _know_ negative numbers are interesting, but that's no excuse to throw pencilcases at the teacher. It nearly had my eye out, you know."

"Sorry, sir," muttered the girl, in her meekest of tones.

"Yes. Kairi, maybe you should take a break from lessons to get yourself under control and your behaviour sorted. Take these to Mr. Flynn's office, please," and here he motioned towards a few boxes, "and don't come back until you feel like you can behave like a normal human being."

Kairi nodded, and hastened to oblige, wondering if anyone else noticed the wink Zexion directed at her.

He wasn't _that_ bad really.

* * *

**A.n: **meh. Enjoy.

**Lamatikah: **Skitts isn't feeling too good because she has to use this weird keyboard... Thing that capitalises letters after elipses but doesn't put a spellchecker on it! le gaspe oh noes!! so try to ignore the numerous mistakes that could be RIDDLED into this fantabulous beautay of a fic(let). o.

**ANYWHO, SORRY FOR UPDATING SO LATE. I typed it up in the summer holidays only it was on my friend's weird laptop/not really a laptop thingy and then it took ages to be sent to me x3 It only has one more chappie & the prologue to go, though, so it should be finished soon **


	11. lesson ten

**the teenager's guide on how to suck at life**

Lesson ten: it all comes crashing down again.

* * *

**L**arxene Panettiere was never the most practical woman. Some even believed she behaved so rashly about things she could not even be classed a such; she oftentimes had childish outbursts and tantrums over the smallest simplest things, like the colour of her eye shadow. When told that such trivial things didn't _matter_ because it was mostly sad teenage boys with spots who'd be looking at her pictures and they'd be more concerned with other far more interesting aspects of her body than her face she snarled and scowled and tried to break things.

There were only two explanations to her behaviour; either she had a very low IQ and never heard of a 'compromise' or it was constantly 'her time of month' and they should all be very kind and understanding towards her plight.

Although, as her assistant Lenne Grawford (who claimed she would be famous one day and liked to write her own song lyrics) has discovered, was hard being kind to such a sourapple crosspatch of a woman. Especially one so enviously, beautifully, painfully skinny and pretty.

It is hard being kind to an ugly angry person, but when that person is also _gorgeous_ it becomes even harder; on several occasions Lenne had wanted to slap her across the face because 'you're pretty **and** you earn a lot of money! What's there to complain about?'.

Larxene was being especially annoying that day as she posed countless times on a white strip of beach wearing a small bikini. It was too hot and her water was lukewarm and her hair **wasn't** sitting right **goddamnit** and would Lenne please do something about it right **now **and hang up for god's sake?!

The brunette wavered slightly, the blonde's mobile crushed against her ear; this was an _important_ call and she couldn't just hang up, but she didn't exactly fancy the idea of passing on the bad news to the irritable woman. Heaven knew what she would do… Fire her, probably, as if the whole thing was her fault.

Well, Lenne didn't want to work for her anymore; she was going to sashey into American Idol in sapphire blue attire and sing her little heart out and record a hit single called 1000 Words and get a CD made and be very happy indeed.

With her dilemma mentally sorted, Lenne apologised for the delay and said "but they really do need to talk to you, Miss" and handed the phone over to the blonde swiftly before she could issue forth a string of insults from those pretty lips and hang up.

Lenne stood in the background, watching slightly as Larxene's bright blue eyes narrowed slightly and growled in a terse, clipped, this-is-what-nightmares-are-made of sort of voice "If this is a joke I'm going to personally pull your eyes out with cocktail sticks and wind your oesophagus around your neck and **choke you to death** and I _don't care_ if that's not even possible, I'll _make it possible_, you mark my words."

Hell, it even made _Lenne_ shudder and she'd only worked with the Halloweenesque Demon of Darkness, Bride of Frankenstein, Child of Satan for going on four years now. She was creepy like that. Screw lingerie ads; she could've passed as Freddy Krueger any day of the week.

"What? You mean what? _What_ happened to Reno?"

Her grip on the phone tightened and all traces of 'i-will-stab-your-face-off'ishness drained away from her voice in a similar manner to the way the tan seemed to peel off her cheeks, leaving bony, pale skin. She wasn't _quite_ that pretty anymore, Lenne noted. Somehow that realisation was even scarier than the Freddy Krueger one. It was even worse seeing such a vicious, headstrong individual crumble like that.

"Right. I… I understand… I'll be right over," and with those words she snapped her phone shut and handed it to Lenne. "Right. I'm leaving early and I don't _care _what the other guys say. Get somebody else to fill in for me. Lenne, get my car keys."

And she left, just like that.

* * *

**K**airi was sitting rather innocently at her graphitti'd table (_Rikku luvs Rikku_ and _Lulu is a slut_) with Naminé on her right side, both girls passing notes quietly (it was an art one learnt to perfect after much trial and error. Now, whenever pieces of paper went across the tabletop, it was nay impossible for Zexion to catch them, or if he did they had some damn good alibis stored behind those large blue eyes and sweet smiles).

Everything was amazingly normal, and Kairi held onto that normality with a small smile of contentedness on her face. It was the nice, dull, boring, every-day, _normal_ sort of normality that one can easily overlook. The sort that you forget you love so much until it's gone, like sitting on your Grandma's knee and letting her read you fairy stories about kingdoms in the darkness and imaging those days will never end until they finally do and you see her coffin lowered into the ground and hold hands with Reno and ask him where Granny's gone and if she'll ever come back (Kairi never asked Larxene about sentimental things, she was useless at distributing comfort and seemed to only care about herself. It was from Reno that Kairi learnt of the birds and the bees and life and death and how to get that nasty girl to give your teddy back without hitting her in the face).

The sort of normality that got wrecked by a stupid boy and stupid fight and over all those years Kairi forgot how lonely it was without Naminé until she was gone and she was sitting through lessons alone with nobody to pass notes to.

It was routine and expectation and **life** in general, life that had been pretty crapped up and awful until a few days ago that was now suddenly amazingly okay again.

There was nothing more okay than sitting with Naminé and passing notes and learning negative numbers and feeling warm and whole and happy inside.

There was especially nothing more okay with her current situation when Zexion moved up to her desk when she was only halfway through exercise seven (multiplying negative and positives through use of Algebra) and leant down and asked her in a very nice voice that Maths teachers don't usually use if she would mind taking some papers over towards Axel's office because out of every kid in the room she was the he could trust to make it there and back in under five minutes and _not_ get lost in the process due the amount of time she'd spent there all week. He grinned with those words, winking as if he'd just told a witty joke to end all witty jokes.

Kairi half-smiled, not wanting to look so eager (in truth there was nothing that seemed more desirable than skipping class and seeing Axel) and nodded her head slightly (at the same time shifting it a little to the right so she could get a good eyeful of those papers and what they were about. Something about the progress of one girl named Alice and how she might be assigned to one-to-one counselling with him for a bit to prepare her for return to school. Apparently she was getting better, but always seemed to have a 'special' bond with Axel and if they saw each other more it might speed up the recovery process).

"Um. Sure. I guess," she smiled, standing up and taking the papers from him. "If it's really _that_ important."

She smiled sunnily as she exited the classroom, spinning around in a neat little circle on her way, grinning at the '**HUGS NOT DRUGS**' posters blu-tacked onto the walls in colourful displays.

The world was really looking up. Maybe not for the poor Alice girl who appeared to be suffering from tremendous mental hardships sanity wise, but for her there wasn't a single rain cloud to spoil her clear blue sky, nor to rain on her parade.

Everything was, in a word, _perfect_.

* * *

**N**othing much happened at Oblivion High despite it having such a large student population but, despite the general lack of deaths and dramas that took place on campus, Mrs. Yunalesca sat in the office filing her nails and awaiting complaints of mild coughs and colds and 'could I please go home?' from various students.

It was the norm and she expected little else.

Certainly not for a blonde-haired woman who looked vaguely like Larxene Panettiere (**THEE **Larxene Panettiere who marketed all those wispy pieces of women's lingerie that she liked to wear so much underneath her boring blouse and to-the-knees skirt to set a good example for the kids) to rush in with an unbuttoned stylish coat flapping about skinny arms revealing a tight-fitting bikini underneath.

"I'm Kairi's mother," this apparition of blonde hair and pale limbs and bright blue eyes lined with thick mascara'd lashes said in sickly-sweet panicky perfume'd tones, the overpowering scent of cherry perfume rolling off her stick thin brightly-painted body.

Yunalesca nearly dug the filer straight through the underneath of her curved black-painted talon in surprise but managed to control herself; it would be _so_ uncool to mutilate your body in such a way in front of such a woman.

God, what a woman.

This woman wasn't a _mother_, she just didn't gel with the whole 'I just made some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for you take to school, now hurry up or you'll miss your bus honey' parental image. Nor could she imagine her wearing an apron cooking dinner or with a bottle of Cilit Bang primping up her kitchen.

Then again, the world is full of surprises.

"Kairi Panettiere. What class is she in? She needs to come home immediately. Personal business."

"Well I… Hmn… Kairi Panettiere… Sophomore…" Yunalesca nodded like a clockwork toy, scampering over to the dusty computer in the corner that stored details and suchlike. Such an emergency for its immediate use hadn't come up in a fair long while, at least not since the incident with Alice and Roxas and the fire. They'd both ended up at St. Aurora's. Poor kids.

"Ah. Kairi," Yunalesca said after a while, punching at keys whilst Miss. Panettiere tapped her feet impatiently and urged her to '_hurry up_ or she'd sue the school for shoddy organisation, God **damnit**'. Aparently she had a lot of powerful friends.

"Kairi. Maths with Professor Zexion, left at the sports hall, down the corridor, third door to the right-" Yunalesca said quickly, not wanting to incur her wrath further.

"_Thank you_," growled the woman irritably, marching off in a flurry of coat and bikini, the almost comical outlandishness of her attire making her stick out against the white and beige decorated interior of the school, corridors lined with '**HUGS, NOT DRUGS**' posters.

"But you're meant to fetch them out yourself, you wait here on the chairs provided and I have to notify Mr. Lourdes and write the information down in the computer and-" Yunalesca's voice trailed away slowly as the woman whipped around in a neat 180 degree circle, glaring her into silent submission with her large blue eyes and thick eyelashes and neatly plucked eyebrows.

"If you ever want something done properly you have to do it yourself," she snarled, spinning back around and quickening her pace. "'Cause it's obvious this shitty establishment ain't gonna do a _thing_ to help."

* * *

**A**xel's life had never exactly been an easy one, as far as guidance counsellor's went.

He used to work for St. Aurora's hospital, fresh from college with his fancy degree in psychology, and it was safe to say the six months he'd worked there had been the worst of his life, a truly grim experience he never hoped to repeat. If he'd had stayed there one day more it wouldn't been a day too long, in his opinion; the smell of disinfectant still plagued his nostrils and every time he blinked he was witness to the synthetically sterile white-upon-white walls of the institute.

If had been a soul-crushing voyage consisting of dull-eyed children, doped-up kids and monochrome corridors for him then god knew what it would've been like for the kids who actually had to stay there in special wards where they couldn't raid the cabinents for those pretty pink pills that made the walls run with rainbows and inanimate objects develop rather chatty characteristics.

One such child he'd had the misfortune of working with (and every child was a misfortune as they all sent him to bed that night with dark dreams in nightmarescapes he was unable to escape from until he woke up, went to work and started the whole chain reaction all over again) was a young girl called Alice Liddell.

She was a sweet child with dark brown hair and neat skirts who always liked to keep her part of the ward tidy, and whenever he came to visit her she looked down at her lap and mumbled of strange meetings with Cheshire cats and mad hatters and '_can't you make it stop?_'.

But the sad thing was, as Axel soon found out, he _couldn't _make it stop, not if the child was too deeply submerged in their own sick, sick heads and the twisted worlds they created to hear anything going on in the outside world.

And by God, Axel _wanted _to help her, he _really_ did. But one look into those sad, sick eyes and a quick glimpse into her sad, sick head was enough to convince him that she was long gone; there was no hope left for her. She might as well have been dead.

She _was_ dead, for whenever Axel looked into her eyes and saw a beautiful girl trapped inside a dark disturbing fantasy land he knew _she_ never saw him. She saw fire and blood and pain and awful, awful things that made her curl up under her covers and cry her little heart out and Axel sat and watched and knew he was powerless to help her, that nobody could help her.

He cared about that girl, cared about her a lot more than the other children in the asylum; than the monosyllabic Fuu who bit her nails and the girl with the moogle doll who was always simply 'the girl with the moogle doll' and Cindy who liked to believe that she was a princess awaiting her hero to ride by on a white horse and break her free from her prison and Roxas with the large empty eyes and the brother who tried to act happy whenever he sat at his bedside but he was dying inside.

These were the normal, everyday images that haunted the halls of St. Aurora's and made up for a colourful background of past crazies and past problems, some with happy endings and some with not, and Axel had grown used to them, could dispel them from his mind because they were part of his job and after work he could do whatever he wanted free from children.

But could never, ever manage to dispel Alice Liddel from his mind.

Alice wasn't work. Alice was a normal child and she deserved to be treated so. Alice was special. Alice was something else. Alice was his obsession.

He might have loved Alice, once upon a time.

Of course, Axel realised the warning signs before the attachment got too strong and decided to resign, figuring that Alice would barely notice his absence. She barely noticed him when he was sat at her bedside, would his leaving make an ounce of difference?

He contacted old school friend Zexion Zekushion ("just call me Zexion. **ONLY** call me Zexion. If you call me 'Zexy' I will _disembowel_ you, you understand?"), pulled a few strings and snapped up a job as school counsellor after the weird Mr. Yensid started to spend all his time sat at home in the utmost of agony because his hip was playing up again rather than stuffed behind his desk dealing with distraught pupils with problems. That was when they knew it was time to bring in somebody new and, thanks to Zexion, that somebody new happened to be Axel.

Axel vowed that the whole Alice situation would not come up again because it hurt knowing he could never be with her and that she would never want to be with him anway, but his resolve had been completely and utterly **crushed** when Kairi Panettiere first entered his office with messy hair and bruised knuckles and scratch marks up and down her arms, declaring she'd just been a fight with her best friend and life was over.

He _tried_ not to fall in love with her but it was hard because she was so feisty and confident and strong and not at all like Alice, like a happy normal girl who had problems she tried to sort out herself and sometimes it was hard but she never stopped trying, never gave up.

Alice gave up.

Axel tried not to fall in love with her because he didn't want to work in St. Aurora's again and the attraction towards her was oh-so-wrong and there was no future between them, it was against the law.

He tried to be sarcastic towards her plight and detached to the whole matter but none of it worked; in the most romantic way possible his head said it was wrong but his heart said it was right and in the end he wished he'd never seen the red-head in the first place because she was ruining everything. But life had dropped her on his doorstep and he was powerless to turn her away and, as life so loves to screw things up, it kept depositing her at his door again and again.

This time with news about one such Alice Liddell who was supposedly getting better. Alice Liddell, the girl he used to adore, and Kairi, the girl he _did_ adore.

It was heavy and it hurt and it was all too much, the red-head handing over those notes with a smile on her face and a flip of her pretty red hair he'd love to run his fingers through, asking what was wrong when his face fell and fingers trembled and eyes watered and he didn't wan to cry in front of Kairi but he couldn't help it.

The prospect of seeing Alice again **hurt**.

The doctors always said she was recovering but one day something would jar in her brain and she'd curl up and cry and wouldn't even recognise Axel the next day and it was all back to square one, of rabbits and tea parties and butcher knives and broken girls. Broken Axel, too, because he knew she'd never get better.

There are some things you just can't fix, and little girls are far too delicate to be stuck back together with glue and sellotape.

"Axel…? Axel, what's wrong…?" asked Kairi softly, looking up at him, notes still in his hands.

"I… It's… It's _nothing_, okay, Kairi. Just… Nothing." And he put the notes to one side and tried to smile but it wasn't really working because his green eyes were still sparkling in the lighting of his office and he wasn't fooling anyone. Not even Kairi. Not even himself.

"I think you're lying," she said softly, moving closer. He stiffened because he didn't want her that close but really he did and it was like Alice all over again, the Alice who was marching back into his life in all her blue-and-white-skirted splendour, and he wasn't sure if he could take it. He just wanted… needed… somebody to comfort him. But Kairi… Not Kairi. She would only make it _worse_.

"I'm not… I'm… It's all okay, Kairi. All okay," a lopsided grin. "Got it memorised?" Cheap and tacked on and not at all like Axel.

"It's not," the girl said softly, and here she moved forwards and wound her arms around the older man, pulling herself up close against him. "It's alright. It's okay."

It wasn't. It was _far_, _far_ from okay. But Kairi believed it was. And how could he hurt Kairi like that? He couldn't.

"Oh… It's just… It doesn't matter, Kairi," he said, putting his own arms around her. "Doesn't matter..."

Too bad that life has a way of screwing your over when you least suspect it, and you really should have learnt by now that it's almost impossible to get a happy ending when your fairytale turns sour and starts to operate by the rules of real life.

The final act of this sordid little tragedy was about to burst through the door in a flurry of cherry-scented shampoo and revealing bikini and bright blonde hair a la _a Series of Unfortunate Events_.

Now, if this **were** _a Series of Unfortunate Events _I would take this moment as the perfect one to write an extremely long and boring narrative on putting this book down (or, in this case, closing this guide) but this is **not** _a Series of Unfortunate Events_.

This is _the Teenager's Guide on How to Suck at Life_ and, by reading this, you must've known that the last and final lesson would've been the worst, an awful twist of fate that would shatter any sort of happiness present in the tale and spill it across the floor.

Of course you knew this, so my advice to you would be don't stop reading. Read it right on through to the bitter end and see what becomes of our little heroine because, even though this _is_ life and it is plagued with imperfections and awful endings, there are good things to.

And so, as the door opened revealing a frantic mother and a puzzled cum horrified Maths teacher, said mother gasping in shock and dragging her daughter away with a painful grasp of pointed fingernails and endless apologies from the guilty party (Axel) and that it wasn't as it seemed I want you to know it doesn't end here.

It doesn't end as Kairi was marched out of the room and escorted down the corridors and into the back seat of her mother's car with mind reeling and stomach hurling and wondering _what now_, I want you to know that it doesn't end here.

It doesn't all finish with these fateful words because they were just the beginning, the start of something equally twisty and turny and complex.

It **doesn't** finish with these words as the car pulled up outside the hospital, and not only because it says kaixel in the description and you probably want to read some proper kaixel.

It **doesn't** finish with these words because life doesn't finish like that, it keeps going and going, and even though Kairi may have _felt_ like that when she heard them she knew her whole story didn't just finish with;

"Kairi, I'm afraid Reno died."

It couldn't, because there's always the aftermath and the epilogue and just because Reno was dead it mean Kairi was, or her story was.

It would just keep going, onwards and upwards, because that is life and there are no two ways about it.

**(not really)**

**the end **

* * *

**a/n: **anddddd. this is (not really) the end. stay tuned for the epilogue and what kaixel it may bring :3


	12. last lesson

**teenager's guide on how to suck at life**

last lesson: where do we go from here?

* * *

**Y**ou know that feeling you sometimes get when life is being especially wild, like a tsunami or a hurricane or some other crazy twisty-turny-stomach-clenching natural phenomenon cum disaster all set destroy everything and everyone you knew in one fell swoop?

The feeling of sick helplessness as life passes you by at alarming speed, the feeling of standing at the back with clenched fists and a heaving stomach while everything goes _wrong_ and you can't do a thing to stop it, the feeling of being inadequate and small compared to the vast spectrum of things in all its multi-coloured eyeball-melting awfulness.

The feeling that makes you stand back, obsessive your pitiful life for what it is, and go 'boy, this really _sucks_'.

Bad feelings.

You know them? I assume you do, considering it's _you _burning your corneas and wasting your time over this neat little guide on how to the best at being the worst.

Those were the feelings that had invaded and decimated – completely _decimated _– the being formerly known as Kairi Panettiere and transformed her into a mess of limp red hair, eyes fringed with purple circles (the permanent make-up of an insomniac) and stick-thin limbs.

From the day she had been dragged out of school in a most shocking way that sent girls and boys alike scurrying into their own respective restrooms, corners of the field, the canteen, the Biology block – much to the chagrin of the teacher, Ansem, who's attempts at getting into his own classroom with a tray of dissected pig lungs were thwarted by large congregations of gossiping teenagers coseyed up in front of the doors of his classroom – wherever, discussing Kairi's departure, everything had changed.

Like the tsunami or the hurricane or some other crazy, twisty-turny-stomach-clenching natural phenomenon cum disaster, life had been changed forever as soon as the words 'Reno's dead' had left her mother's 'kissable crimson' smeared lips.

Life went by pretty quickly after that, an endless spinning whirlwind of moving pictures and disjointed sound bites – "_car crash_", "_dead on scene_", "_nothing we could do_", "_so, so sorry_" – that left her doubled up over the sink being sick, walls spinning and head hurting and heart clenching as she thought bitterly _why, why, why_?

It was a little bit like turning the pages in a picture book. One day everything was fine, next flip of the page and ka-boom. Reno. Car crash. Dead. Hospital.

And Kairi had trailed along the white-washed halls of St. Auroras' playing the good little girl with her head hanging and arms dangling like a broken puppet, the smell of disinfectant rife in the alarmingly squeaky-clean atmosphere of the bleak establishment, endless corridors and dying patients and sickly smiling nurses saying 'he's gone to a better place, I'm sure'.

Kairi wondered what it was like to be a doctor or a nurse, lying all the time. She wondered if it would hurt telling a young girl that her mother was simply sleeping or a crying husband that his wife 'had a very good chance' but was really seconds away from death, or Larxene and Kairi that 'he looked so peaceful and happy'.

Kairi was a smart girl and she knew he'd look anything but.

She imagined him, red blood smeared across pale cheeks and empty eyes staring up into a crumpled mess of glass and metal pressing down on all sides like a chrysalis, and had to get up to be sick again.

When she returned back to her mother's side, hair messy and cheeks pale, the nurse (Jasmine, apparently) was still talking softly, saying "well, actually, there was one survivor."

A flip of the page and they were back home, the three of them sat around the kitchen table, Larxene, Kairi and Tifa.

Kairi looked her up and down and thought she hated her, as she muttered things and Larxene nodded sympathetically. Why Reno? Why not her?

When Kairi excused herself from their company she heard sobs and pictured Tifa crying into her cup of coffee until it went stone-cold, gleaning some sick satisfaction from her pain. Kairi was glad she wasn't the only one who hurt, head buried into her pillow as voices drifted from upstairs, something about a wedding, something about a funeral, something about a white dress, something about black dye and something about bereavement.

Hours, days, weeks flew by, Kairi forgetting school books and homework and best friends as she chewed loose strands of greasy hair and nibbled at her pen-tops and bit ferociously at her fingernails and doodled nonsense in the margins of her workbooks and looked around for Axel, but he was never there.

Naminé and Sora, on the other hand, always were.

They were even there at the funeral.

* * *

**K**airi felt the cold penetrate her back, playing tag up and down her spinal column as she leant up against the outside of the building. But oh, not just any old building of bricks and mortar it was, for it had the most unusual back yard. A vast expanse of downtrodden green grass littered from here to over the top of the hill in the distance with greying tombstones all grouped together by means of a wrought iron fence.

Hell, even the _squirrels_ that scampered to and fro looked depressed, as if they were ready for a good spell six feet under themselves. And if the squirrels looked bad, that was nothing to the people.

Nothing to her, with pale skin and pointed elbows and limp hair as the wind teased it about her face, blank staring eyes and 'Jesus Christ Kairi, you look _dead_'. Yeah, felt it, too. She could probably pass off as Reno any day of the week, the scary dead girl that stared from her mirror everyday with a gaunt face and dull eyes.

Thinking about Reno made her eyes water a lump rise to her throat, the dull sounds of organ music floating through the walls to greet her ears in a crescendo of noise and words. Reno, a good man, a kind man, who loved his engaged wife-to-be and family, life cruelly ended by a tragic twist of fate.

Now to be dead and buried and Kairi couldn't _take_ it anymore, she **had** to leave (leave halfway through her own brother's funeral, jostling people up and down her pew as she tried to escape) before she started to cry. Or worse still, _didn't_ start to cry, signifying that she had, as she had suspected and feared over the course of the last few weeks, gone numb.

Her life had taken on a dreamlike quality after the incident – sure, she nodded and smiled and answered questions but inside was completely detached from the outside world, floating further and further away and she couldn't do a thing about it, and it wasn't like Tifa was making it better. It was painful watching the brunette force smiles around Kairi but when the girl exited the room she cried for hours on end, probably even more so than Kairi.

Kairi knew – of course she knew, the woman was the very personification of all the Evanescence song lyrics, breathing her last breath and everybody's fool with the plastic smiles she never meant and going under into her own private hell.

But if Tifa was a walking, living (but just barely) representation of emo poetry and depressing song lyrics Kairi was hardly faring any better, what with her bad school grades, snappy attitude and anorexic appearance. Big surprise, that was, considering she never ate. When you're cast down in the pits of doom and gloom and despair it does take a toll on your appetite and appearance.

She wasn't wearing any make-up, either, not even the simplest of simple things like concealer, but she supposed Reno wouldn't mind. No matter what her outward appearance was she highly doubted it was bothering all the poor souls buried under her feet and around the churchyard.

Certainly not 'here lies Emily' or 'here lies Victor' and – violet-blue eyes widened in shock as they paused in their roamings about the tombstone-scattered landscape – Axel.

Axel?

"Wh… What the hell are you _doing_ here?" she asked with eyes still bunny-in-the-headlights-big, arms folded up against her chest all protectively so with head hanging down. Maybe so he wouldn't see the dark circles under her eyes and gaunt look about her face. Did she care? Yes, a small part of her did – she didn't want him to see her looking like a gloomy, rained-on train wreck of a girl all collapsed in on herself and falling to pieces. But it wasn't like he couldn't help but notice.

"Kairi, you look awful." Well, so much for tact and flattery. "What's wrong? Well, stupid question, given… Given the circumstances…" He sighed, looking around the twisted-tree black-and-white surroundings.

"Why are you here?" she asked softly, voice barely audible.

"I… I'm sorry, Kairi. I wanted to say I was sorry. I shouldn't have and… I couldn't just leave it like it was. Not like that. We didn't even get to say goodbye."

"You're leaving?" These words were like a fist around her heart, squeezing until it exploded into a pulpy bloody red mess of internal organs. Something to write emo poetry about later on but **no**, she mentally thwacked herself. She hadn't sunk that low. Yet. As long as boxes full of pointy objects were not temptations she was doing fine on the whole 'river-of-death' front. Now maybe if everything else would get back to normal…

"I _have_ to Kairi," he replied, voice clouded with emotion upon emotion, all stacked up like building blocks ready to be knocked down. "I _have_ to. You think they'd let me stay after what happened? No. Far from it." He laughed, a bitter laugh. "Oh no. It's back to St. Aurora's for me, but probably not with children, don't know if they'd trust me anymore. One wrong move and I'll end up with no job eating spaghetti-Os from a tin, you wait and see."

"But that means I'll… I'll probably… Probably never see you again…"

She clenched her fists, eyes welling up with warm tears that bunched her eyelashes together in a smoky haze.

"Hey, don't cry, Kai. Every cloud has a silver lining, you know."

One of Tifa's sayings, too. Where's the silver lining when you're crying into cups of tea until they go stale and rocking yourself to sleep at night knowing that you'll have to get up again in the morning with a hurting head and breaking heart? Kairi felt like that every morning, limbs heavy as she heaved herself downstairs and **oh joy, **another day of school. It was weird to think that once-upon-a-time she actually cared about it all. Cared enough to beat her best friend to a bloody pulp. Cared enough to inspire crowds of bitchy girls who popped strawberry bubblegum between sour-apple lips to scratch lines on her arms with pointed nails and put dents in her head by slamming it against a wall. Cared enough to fall. In. Love. With. Axel.

Stupid girl.

That was it, that was what it was. Love. A vicious, pointed, spiky thing that stabbed through hearts and made you write bad poetry locked up in rooms with four walls painted black, perhaps adorned with a lone poster of the grim reaper or My Chemical Romance (please God, no). Not cute and fluffy and happy in the slightest.

Not clichéd film endings and happily ever afters.

Not here, anyway.

"What have I got to be happy about?" she asked bitterly, looking up to meet in his bright green eyes, shining from every jagged point like stained glass, just as broken as she was with the recent turn of events. Maybe because she loved him. Maybe because he loved her. Maybe that was it.

A small half-smirk half-smile formed on his lips in a twisted manner like a worm burying itself under soil, leaning down and folding up limbs until he was able to whisper in her ear; "you're got me, you silly girl. And even when I go we'll find each other again, you know? You know what that's called, Kairi? It's called love."

And with that he pressed his lips up against her own ones, arms sliding around her back and up into her hair as she responded willingly, pulling him closer to her in a hug.

There was a happy ending somewhere amidst this kaleidoscope of conflicting colours and light off sharp edges, she was sure. Something to hold onto amidst the hurricanes and tsunamis and whatever else may try to rip you apart into bloody little pieces.

There was Sora and Naminé, her two very best friends who had stuck by her through the whole ordeal even when she'd tried to push them away. There was Larxene, her own mother, and even if she'd never exactly been very motherly to her over the years she was still there for her. There was Axel.

And there would always, always, always be Reno. She'd always remember him and nothing life threw at her could ever, ever change that.

Nothing.

* * *

**"**_**I** know that you're hiding things, using gentle words to shelter me…_"

The young woman shuddered into her oversized, star-studded jacket, pulling the zipper up as far it would go and hiding her painted fingernails and frostbitten hands further up her sleeves.

Her head bobbed up and down as music by the newly dubbed superstar, Lenne Grawford, poured through her ears like luxuriant silk courtesy of her iPod tucked safely away in her pocket.

It was peaceful to be away from normal adult worries of work and money and rent and Sora, Riku and Naminé, her flatmates, to walk along the overgrown paths that criss-crossed the graveyard and hear the squirrels scamper about in the long grass and watch the cotton-candy clouds drift carelessly through a steely blue sky.

It was strange how life turned out.

All those years ago (the carefree years when she walked about the corridors of high school with her too-short skirt and slackly-knotted tie garnering annoyed glances and mutterings of 'oh yeah, that Kairi Panettiere' from the student populace as she smiled and thought it all _mattered_) she had believed Riku to be a self-centered, arrogant ass.

Now it was different, especially since he'd become such good friends with Sora and Naminé in their senior year.

It had started with a school dance, Kairi forget which. They all merged together into a pointless blur of gyrating bodies and weird pink punch that made the walls melt and stupid guys asking her to dance. This one in particular stuck out because of Riku, invited along by Sora and Naminé and then later ditched on a collapsible chair next to Kairi while the couple swayed and made googly eyes to one-another under the sparkly, seizure-inducing lights of the discoball.

"I wouldn't drink that punch if I were you," Kairi had advised him wisely, watching as he sloshed some of the bright pink liquid into a paper cup.

"Why not?" he'd replied, doing a swift double-take around the room and noticing so many scrunched-up cups hidden under chairs and kicked into the corners, pink sticky stuff lining the floor. "Is it spiked or something?"

"No, it's not spiked. It's just that… Well… Selphie made it."

Kairi could still remember the way he laughed, aquamarine eyes catching in the glowing lights of the discoball as he put the drink down. "Well I guess I wouldn't want a collapsed lung or anything."

"Yeah, then Sora'd get mad at you for bleeding to death and ruining his date," Kairi sniggered.

And that was how it all started, him eventually inviting her to a dance. By the end of the night they'd become practically inseparable, and know they all lived together.

A smile tugged at Kairi's peach-pink lips fringed with a subtle shade of blue as she made her way towards the grave, skirting a few people as they stood, transfixed, at other graves, muttering polite 'excuse me's here and there as she picked her way along the grassy path.

Finally at her destination she allowed herself to fall to her knees, not caring if it got her jeans muddy, breaths coming out in little puffs of air as she ran her fingertips along the lettering engraved into the stone.

'_Here lies Reno Panettiere, aged 24, beloved son, brother and fiancée. May his spirit rest in peace_.'

She got to her feet a tad uneasily as if the sudden stream of memories had been like a physical hit to her hit, turning in a hazy stupor as her bluey-violet eyes met a pair of bright green ones belonging to a trenchcoat'd figure a few yards away, also examining Reno's grave.

"Hi," she greeted a tad shakily, brushing strands of red hair from her face. She knew those eyes... One of Reno's friends, perhaps? "Are you here to see Reno Panetteire?" she asked, tilting her head to one side like an inquisitive bird.

"No. Not Reno, at any rate," replied the taller figure, pulling his hood off to reveal mess of bright red hair sticking up in all directions from the scalp like an explosion. "A Panettiere, yes. Reno, no."

Kairi gasped, moving her hands up to her mouth so he wouldn't catch her look of disbelief.

"Axel?"

"The very one."

"But I… Um… What are you doing here?" Kairi asked softly, feeling her heart flutter like a butterfly beating within her chest. She forced it into submission, shaking her head, the wind catching her blood red locks and sending them flying about her head like pond weed. She _wasn't_ going to let that happen now, not that she had a life of her own to lead.

She wasn't just some stupid schoolgirl with a stupid crush anymore. She was grown up, she had a job, she had a boyfriend. She didn't have anything left to offer Axel. Not her heart. Especially not her heart.

"Looking for you," he replied, staring heavenwards. "Considering it's the beginning of December. Nearly Christmas and all that. Well, not really, but the stores down town have already put their tacky waving Santas and plastic elves up in the windows. I figured if I came here every day I'd be sure to see you, knowing you'd think the same on the whole Christmas thing. A time to remember, you know?"

"I know," Kairi replied softly, scuffing the tips of her trainers into the grass and dirt beneath her feet. "But the thing is, I can't stand here and talk all day. I've grown up; I don't have enough time to… To remember…"

"So you'd rather forget everything?"

"I don't think my head's big enough to hold everything," Kairi sighed, the silence of the graveyard punctuated only by their own soft voices and the wind. It seemed as if the real world of skyscrapers and cars and work had simply vanished, that there was nothing else left but Kairi and Axel and their own little ethereal planet of frostbite and steel blue skies. But a small voice in Kairi's head had to remind her; you can't stay here. You have a life to live out there. You have your job and money doesn't grow on trees, Kai, you dozy girl. You have Sora and Naminé. You have Riku. Remember Riku?

Another part of Kairi's brain, the part that daydreamed and swirled around whimsical thoughts, the part that seemed so far away from the real world and so hard to tame into submission (a bit like a balloon floating up into space with no string to pull it back down) wondered if she even _wanted_ to remember Riku. Riku was part of the other world beyond that hill and through those gates and into the city.

"And I learnt to… Axel, I can get along without you now. I can get along with my life. I'm not… I'm a little kid anymore who needs help all the time, who needs _your_ help all the time. I don't. I haven't seen you in ages. I learnt. I grew up."

And yet, deep down, there's still that part of Kairi that feels like a little girl, the part that surfaces every once in a while when she curls up by herself to read stories of wonderlands and fantasy worlds, the part of her that drifts and dreams and thinks what if? The part that looks out of the window at midnight and sees shooting stars and still makes wishes even though she knows wishes never come true.

"But don't you ever think? Don't you wonder what life would be like if…?"

The question is left hanging on the air, one question that still plagues Kairi's mind as she exits the graveyard and walks down grey gum-splattered sidewalks, a part that's so far away from the people walking around beside her chattering into mobile phones and holding onto briefcases and giggling to their neighbours, flashes of colour on all four sides.

What if?

What if that one last kiss goodbye (yes goodbye, goodbye forever – even Kairi knows that) was something else altogether, the start of something new?

What if Kairi let it be the start of something new?

**(yes really)**

**the end.**

****

**

* * *

**

**a.n:** yeyness tis over now XD. another multichap fic done, even if i didn't get it done in time for the contest. by about a mile –le sigh- and lol for ethereal kairi/axelness at the end xP i like to see kairi as a belle-like librarian girl. who's going to get married to riku. yeyness. and i decided to let lenne because famous because she's cool like that ;3

**xx skitts**


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